Mother’s Day

This morning I talked to an older woman whose answer to “What are you doing on Mother’s Day?” was so selfless. She responded that since there are several days coming up like Memorial Day, Fourth of July, picnics, and others when she’ll get to see her kids, she tells her two daughters and two daughters-in-law to have their own Mother’s Day with their kids and just send her a card. Refreshing!

My mom, like this woman, never worried about which day we’d celebrate with her, not just on Mother’s Day, but on Thanksgiving and Christmas as well.  It freed us up and actually made me want to spend more time with my mom.

Hopefully, I’m learning that lesson as well. If you want to enjoy your family, and have them enjoy your company, hold them loosely.

Camera Catastrophies

My last blog presented the succession of our family cameras. It occurred to me that not all the cameras we’d owned wound up at the garage sale because their lives had been cut short by accidents, and they’d ended up in a different sort of box.

            My memory doesn’t serve me well enough to create a list of childhood camera catastrophies, but one type of accident happened several times; the tiny clip on the top of my Ansco came unfastened, the back flopped open, and my film was exposed, rendering it useless. So sad when my last $1.00 had been spent on film.

            Several of our camera mishaps have taken place on vacations when every dime counts and repair or buying a new camera stretch the wallet thin. The one which stands out in my mind so clearly was during our trip to Washington D.C. during the Clintons’ first term in the White House. We came upon a photographer who had a life-sized cutout poster of Bill and Hillary, and he was charging a small fee to take a picture of people with the Clintons, using a person’s own camera.  It seemed like a good idea, but when the entrepreneur tried to snap it, the camera became rigid as stone. No way was it going to have the Clintons in its memory stick! It never took another picture and repair was more than a new one.

            The next scene opens in Hawaii where we are already inside a camera shop, hoping the guy can unstick Don’s 35 mm shutter release. After a few irrelevant questions about the camera, the proprietor began to punch at the button with a pen! We didn’t stay to see any more of this guy’s unconventional methods of fixing cameras, rented one for the rest of our stay, and took Don’s camera to Ritz when we got home.

            Two cameras have suffered being dropped. One, in the parking lot of Yellowstone Lodge got a shattered lens, and the other one…I have to tell the story! We were in New York City’s Grand Central Station with a friend who knew about the acoustics in the high-ceilinged building, and the tricks they played on ears. She wanted to take our picture in a corner outside a very famous bar to prove we’d been there, and impulsively grabbed for my camera. In “slow motion” I watched my almost new Sony Digital make a high arch in the air as it slipped from her hand, and land with a terrible sound on the marble floor. Honestly, a crowd gathered to see what would happen next. Nothing did. My little camera was dead, my friend devastated, and I, speechless. Not another vacation broken camera, my mind screamed. On the outside front corner, there was a little dent, and as I was examining it, the camera gave a whirr, came back to life, and served me well for several more years until I gave it to a young friend.

            And finally, this last weekend while on a VACATION to Anza Borrego, my last in a long line of cameras began to shake inside, leaving me with the feeling that I’d better save up for a new Sony because my next favorite activity to writing is taking pictures!

Camera Connections

When we set out to move from our home of thirty plus years in Upland, paring down became a necessity, and two huge garage sales helped to that end. Having lots of space in your home is conducive to saving items, and our cameras, childhood through the new century, were a dust-gathering collection. We placed each one in a box for the sale, reminiscing as we went.  Probably the oldest were a Brownie and an Ansco box camera, battery-less, eight print film eaters, which needed loading by hand.  Carefully hooking one end of the roll of film onto the take-up spool, and holding your breath as you turned the knob and hope it caught so the film could be advanced, the photographer prepared to take a prize-winning shot.. Of course, your subject had to be outside because there was no flash, and if a jiggle occurred, there went the prize.

            Several of the cameras in the carton were 35 mm, the type into which a film canister was loaded and advanced by manually turning a knob.  No more rolls of film accidentally exposed due to butter fingers! Later on, with the addition of a battery, film advanced on its own but needed to be rewound at the end of twenty-four exposures.  Flashbulbs were being added now, in single bulbs which crackled after flashing, and then in the amazing cube which rotated to provide four flashes before ejecting.

            Since the technology of camera design went forward at a faster-than-flashbulb pace, there were a few more different types in the box, including a Polaroid. Oh the joy of being able to see the picture just a few minutes after taking it!  I think that was the beginning of photographers needing instant gratification. Each photo still had to be thought through and carefully considered before pushing the button so as not to waste the precious rolls or film packs. Many important scenes were lost in those few seconds of thought, and unless you were also able to process your film, there was never anything in photography so disheartening than getting back a set of prints which were not what you’d hoped.

            Digital cameras changed all that, and there were none in the box for the garage sale.  The ability to see the scene, captured immediately in the tiny window, changed my way of taking pictures. No longer afraid of wasting film, I snapped with happy abandon and deleted with satisfaction any picture which didn’t suit me. The memory sticks, thumb drives, and computers can store thousands of photos. Several online sites I use not only store my treasures for me, but will turn them into souvenir mugs, books, and magnets. When my parents passed away, there were many albums and scrapbooks left behind for me to go through, and not a one was digital. What fun (tongue in cheek) my kids will have sorting out my memories!