It’s Tuesday night, and I’m so bored right now, even grass growing outside my door would be exciting.

And when I’m bored… I start getting “modification” ideas. I’m not a person who just lets something exist for the sake of its existence. I’ll re-paint it, I’ll re-leather it, I’ll do something to it that changes its aesthetics and its appearance.

Example.

A few months ago, I re-covered by Agfa Chief camera in flame-printed duct tape. And it turned out nice. I say that because, while searching for a decent 127 film shooter for my arsenal, I came across this dingy Kodak Brownie Fiesta in a garage sale. Paid the high price of $1.50 for it.

I looked the camera over. It’s a piece of junk. The front body is just clear plastic, the lens is a plastic convex circle; the interior decorations are printed on a dull, foil-trimmed chunk of cardboard. A Kodak factory worker probably spent about 3 minutes assembling this thing and putting it back on the conveyor belt. And what’s that crest of arms in the lower right corner? If you ask me, this Fiesta camera should start with a capital S.

I didn’t even put a roll of film through the camera. It just looked like a cheap piece of crap, a mass-market attempt to convince people that cameras like this are high art. Trust me. This camera wouldn’t even get a sniff from a hipster lomographer.

So maybe I didn’t buy the camera to shoot with it.

What if I bought this camera to make something ELSE with it?

Yep… it’s modding time.

I looked through my photography archives, trying to find a decent picture here or there.

And I found one. A photo of tulips I took a year or so ago, a beautiful picture of blooms sprouting up to the sky. I remember printing this out as a 5×7 image… probably as a gift for someone, or maybe as just a test print. Don’t know. Don’t care.

It was the right size. At this point, that’s all that matters.

The Fiesta’s face plate was held on with two tiny Phillips-head screws. I used my jeweler’s screwdriver to remove the screws, and the face plate popped off with no trouble.

As you can see, the ornate decorations for this camera are nothing more than a die-cut cardboard insert. Well, really, what were you expecting from this camera? Gold-encrusted pinstripes and George Eastman’s signature?

However, the cardboard insert made for a great template. I placed the insert over my tulip picture, and used a pen to trace an outline of the the cardboard insert on the tulip photo. And as you can see from the picture below, the camera “lens” is just a cheap piece of plastic. I mean, what are you expecting? Carl Zeiss glass?

I then took a pair of scissors and trimmed the picture to the outline. A few folds and snips later, I placed the faceplate back on the camera, and screwed down the plate with the two tiny screws.

And I got this.

I’ll probably re-do this in the future – the only reason I used this tulip photo was because it was handy and it was colorful. I don’t know if I’ll ever put a roll of film in this camera – I’m still looking for a decent 127 4x4cm shooter, and this camera is no Yashica 44LM or Baby Rollei.

But I could put another picture in this camera – maybe the Empire State Plaza or Uncle Sam’s statue or Nipper or the GE logo or a ghost sign or some spraypainted graffiti – something, anything – and make it a Capital District art statement.

I could definitely have fun with this.

Lots of fun.