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With the Reno Rodeo highlighting its 100th year I, as a photojournalist, wanted to capture the celebration of a century of rodeos. Inspired by the historic images of the Reno Rodeo, I set about trying to find a way of seeing our modern Rodeo through the lens of history.
Photoshop, of course, has the capability of making modern images appear old, but I found this unauthentic and laborious. Modern lenses are incredible works of engineering allowing for stunning sharpness in images, which is fantastic, but visually distant from my historic ideals.
I then turned to my small collection of early 1900s cameras. What if I could find
After a great deal of experimentation, I came to a working solution: A 1931 Kodak Rainbow Hawkeye vest pocket lens on a modern Canon DSLR. All of these images were captured using this lens. They had minor editing to color match historic images from the 1930s.
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These are fantastic photos and a great idea for milestone celebrations like this. How did you convert the lens for the modern Canon?
I purchased a few body caps and drilled holes though the center of the caps so light from the lens could enter the camera. I then experimented oh how to mount the lens to the cap. I ended up consulting a friend who does a lot of crafts and they concocted a combination of glue and black electrical tape that held much better than my previous attempts.
All I had to do then was set the camera to manual and spend a few days practicing before the rodeo. The images in the article are a collection of about 4 days of rodeo shooting with the vest pocket lens.
The lens was roughly 80mm fixed zoom with an aperture of f5.6 just by my own estimation