The Spirit Craft Collective

A pint-size electro-rangefinder with big-glass swagger. The Hi-Matic E pairs a fast 40/1.7 Rokkor with fully programmed AE, letting you concentrate on timing and distance while it quietly nails exposure. Slip on a 49 mm filter, align that crisp RF patch, and let the leaf shutter whisper. Compact. Bright-eyed. Effortlessly capable in its own way. I paid $50 for mint condition one four years ago but it has since doubled in price. Still worth it!

Origin Story

I keep the Minolta Hi-Matic E in a tin lunchbox, because Mat likes a packed lunch and a good hideout. It also helps with the smell...

We call him HighMat the Hippie. Mid-’70s vintage, post-Woodstock heartache. “After the mountain,” he tells me, “everything’s downhill, man—good sledding, though.” He laughs, coughs, and the viewfinder fogs like a bathroom mirror.

Mat lives in a small, fragrant weather system. He’s a poet by ambition, a mechanic by necessity—the word he can’t quite remember. “Not engineer,” he says. “The other one. Wrenches. I fixed cars and rhymes.” His rangefinder habit makes sense: he sees two of everything. Even sober he’s a double exposure. “My whole life’s a ghosted frame,” he shrugs. “You line the doubles up till they kiss—click—and you call it focused.”

His story comes out like a B-side. A garage with a radio stuck on the Grateful Dead. Patchouli trying and failing to beat motor oil. He took odd jobs, just enough for rent and rolling papers, and wrote poems on the backs of invoices.

Then came the car. A real looker—chrome like a lake, a hood long as a promise. Mat snapped it with the Hi-Matic because beauty deserves paperwork. Later he slid under the lift to tinker, saw two levers, picked the wrong twin. Down came the speedster. No drama, no villain, just the soft physics of a bad moment. The last thing he saw was the bumper splitting into two moons. His soul went where the picture already was: into the camera that had claimed the day.

He drifted a while before finding me. I recognized him the first time I focused; the rangefinder’s second image refused to behave, kept dancing, like the camera itself was stoned. The negatives glowed with bell-bottom sun flares and small, friendly light leaks that looked suspiciously like peace signs. Annie sneezed at the smell. I said, “Buddy, that’s vintage.”

In the Spirit Craft Studio, Mat’s the mellow uncle on the sagging couch. Mama Minny makes him crack a window. “Ventilation, sweetheart.” Gus points at the tripod like it’s a jack stand. “Safety first, brother.” Rockin’ Rene calls him Grandpa and steals his lighter; he swears it’s communal property. Penelope and Mat bond over the blurries. “Seeing double isn’t wrong,” she tells him. “It’s just extra.” Tater offers him a baked potato. “Cannibalism?” Mat asks. “Nah,” Tater says. “Family reunion.”

Shooting with him, work bleeds into play. The Hi-Matic turns regular scenes into old album covers: sun a little too golden, shadows with sideburns. Mat likes chrome, puddles, rearview mirrors; anything that makes two of a thing. He’ll whisper from the shutter, “Breathe in on the half-press. Let the world settle. Or don’t. Chaos has good posture.” Clients don’t notice the haze, or maybe they forgive it because everyone looks kinder through a little fog.

He still writes. Dictates, really. I keep a greasy notepad in the bag:

carburetor hymn
you are a lung that learned money
sing, baby, sing

He’s equal parts earnest and ridiculous, which, honestly, is an excellent way to haunt a camera. On rough days, he jokes about dying under a car. On quiet ones, the joke settles into something softer. “Bad choice,” he says, “but good timing. Took the photo, got the ticket punched. That’s art, right?” I tell him art is a receipt; he tells me life is store credit.

Sometimes he talks about Woodstock like it was a weather event. “Rained hope,” he says. “Mud was opinions.” And when the two images in the rangefinder finally slide together, he gets gentle. “There. That’s the trick, Lightkeeper. Hold two things at once—the dream and the job—’til they agree to share a chair.”

We keep the Minolta tuned and the studio aired out. Mat reminds me to check the latch on the lift of life; I remind him snacks are not a philosophy. He is not famous, not tragic, just useful in the way a steady hand is useful. My pictures with him come back a touch softer, a touch kinder, with the world doubled just enough to suggest there might be more of it than we can stand at once.

When I put the camera to my eye, Mat hums the guitar part he never learned. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s focus. Line the doubles up. Give the moment a place to sit.”

Click. The images kiss. For a second the whole frame breathes like a V-8 at idle, easy and alive.

Fueled By Coffee

(And Your Kind Support)

I run this cozy little ad-free corner of the internet for the joy of it.

I chase light, not clicks. I make photos. If this place brings a smile to your face please know: your support keeps film in the camera, coffee in the cup, and the adventures rolling.

Click on the coffee cup to toss in a few coins, if you like.

No pressure.

Either way, thank you for being a part of the collective

and helping my vision grow.