The Yellow Box, A Sexy Lady, And Me

That good looking thirty-something woman is my mother back in 1957. We'd moved to Miami the previous October, and here we were staying for a few days at a motel in Marathon, in the Florida Keys. Even at that early stage of my photography career I think that I shot a pretty decent bathing beauty picture. The camera was the Ansco Memar that I'd bought with my Bar Mitzvah money about a year before.

The "Stand there, look at the camera, and smile!" shot was one my mother took of me. It was in front of the little apartment building where we lived, 1260 N.E. 136th Terrace, only about five or six blocks from where I live now. I have no idea what the "dress up" occassion was. Maybe the Jewish holidays?

Kodak film still said made by Eastman, and the big competition was Ansco which came in a red box. I'm not sure just why I used Kodak film. Better advertising perhaps? My camera was an Ansco Memar, made in Germany by Agfa

Ansco Memar ~ My First "Miniature Camera"

I was 12 years old and wanted something better than a box camera. I was looking for something with some basic controls and a lens that would focus. My dad had a Retina that he bought in the late 1930's, but while he was stationed in hot humid India during WW-II fungus had gotten to the lens.

I don't think that desert had ben served as yet at my Bar Mitzvah reception when I snuck out with a pocket full of gelt (Yiddish for "money") and headed up the street to McGee's with plans to buy myself a Kodak Pony. The salesman convinced me that the Ansco Memar was the better buy, metal rather than plastic body, and a much better lens. It was made by Agfa in Germany and I used it until I turned 18, got seriously interested in photography, and bought a Komaflex-S. I don't know whatever happened to the Memar although I recently got another one "just because".