Smile! Say "Cheeeeese!"

Do you remember annual school photos or family holiday pictures requiring you to smile for the camera with a vocalization "cheeeese," perhaps? In Argentina, they say "whiskeeey" before a photo. In Bulgaria, it's "Zeleeee" (cabbage), in China, it's "qie ziiii" (eggplant), and in Germany, they say "Spaghettiiiii." Whatever gets you to grin.

The first cameras, invented as a drawing aid for artists, such as the Daguerreotype cameras in the mid-1800s, captured a permanent image on a copper plate coated with silver iodide. The exposure time could require half an hour!

In 1889, George Eastman created the Kodak camera, which used celluloid film. It was a simple box with a fixed-focus lens and single shutter speed. It came preloaded with enough film for 100 exposures; however, you had to send the whole camera back to the manufacturer for processing and reloading.

The next big camera moment came in 1925 when Oskar Barnack invented a small hand-held camera that used 35mm film like big Hollywood movie cameras. He called it the Leica l, and it revolutionized photography.
The 1950's US saw a popularization of Japanese cameras as US soldiers stationed overseas brought back sleek new models of Nikon, Pentax, and the wildly popular Canon AE1 rangefinder. These single-lens reflex cameras (SLRs) had a mirror-and prism system that allowed you to see and frame the image before capturing it. Major improvement!

New advances brought us autofocus point-and-shoot; then, the first digital camera by Sony in 1981, and the first camera-phone by Sharp in 2000. But the more work the camera did automatically for you, the less individuality and originality resulted. It was too perfect.

Today, many young people -- especially those retro-loving hipsters -- have embraced the limited technology of older model cameras (even plastic toy cameras), turning their deficiencies into strengths.

With an analog camera, you manually set the shutter speed, lens aperture, and focus point. You are thinking, not the camera. It requires a bit of skill, patience, and experience, and the resulting photos may be imprecise, a bit blurry, over or underexposed, but they are unique! Hipsters love it!

Remember the surprise and anticipation of getting your developed photos back from the drugstore! OHM remembers that fun too. We have created a vintage SLR camera based upon a classic model that is wildly popular in its heyday and coveted by today's hipster generation. The textures and details of this vintage MEMORY MAKER are stunning and will open albums full of fond memories tucked away in your heart. What else is a bead but a memory?

Our folks would gather the family together at every significant family event to "preserve the moment." Maybe yours did too. We would jostle for position and then turn our expectant faces toward the camera.

"Say cheeeeeese!" or if you prefer, "whiskey!" or "spaghettiiiii". Just don't blink before it's gone.