Big surprise, I picked up photography from my father, so I will provide a short overview of his photography background.

Not sure if Dad was a photographer before he joined the US Army in WW2 (I suspect not, his family did not have money for luxuries like cameras), but he did talk about using a Robot Luftwaffen Eigentum camera that he acquired near the end of the war. This was a spring-driven 35mm camera that came in several variants. More info can be found on the CAMERA COLLECTING BLOG.

He took photos in Europe and North Africa after the war while flying a B-17 doing photo mapping as part of the Casey Jones aerial mapping project. He brought back thousands of negatives that he had developed in his unit’s photo lab, to include photos of Egyptian pyramids, Gibraltar, etc. Unfortunately, all the negatives, and his camera, were lost in a house fire after the war. He flew the B-17 Tower of London, pictured here before the ship was transferred to the 306th Bomb Group.

Fast forward a few years, on a road trip to Acapulco Mexico, he picked up a new 35mm camera in Mexico City, a Voigtländer Bessamatic. He said it was cheaper in Mexico than in US camera stores.

Three years later I arrived . . .and he used that camera.