Pictures of You, Pictures of Me...

I took this picture in South Beach in September, 2004. I didn't notice until after that the man is undressing the mannequin!

My loyal readers may have noticed a lack of original photographs on my blog. It's not for lack of picture taking or lack of desire to post said pictures. It's mainly because I lost the software for my camera and also lost Photoshop when my hard drive crashed some months ago. I have tried uploading pics directly to Flickr, but with whatever current setup I have it takes forever. It's very frustrating, because I have been a shutterbug for as long as I can remember!

The first camera I remember using was a Polaroid. I grew up in the 70's, and it seemed that every place I went there was a Polaroid camera. It's on my list of things I want to possess from my childhood, along with 2-tone Guess jeans and my sticker collection (remember those gel-filled stickers - or Trend Scratch and Sniffs?).

Next, I had a C110. It was perfect for taking shots of my classmates in school or on field trips. It was the camera I used to photograph the beer bottle smashed on Plymouth Rock. I took thousands of pics of my beloved and beautiful tortioseshell cat Rascal with this camera.

Then we had a few Kodak Disc cameras when they were all the rage. The pics were so low quality, but that didn't stop me! This camera was around in the mid 80's, when I was 13 or so. Again, Rascal occupied many frames, as did many family members in various candid poses. I seemed to have a knack for photographing people while they were eating. I guess it was a collision of preoccupations on my part.

On to my first 35 mm. My dad handed down an old Minolta SRT 101 SLR camera, completely manual, to me when I was 14 or so. I didn't put it down for years. This was a time in my life when my mind was a fertile ground. I was so interested in so many things that my dad also loved. There was music: I hijacked guitars and multi-track recording equipment. I spent hours listening to old records: Simon and Garfunkel, Janis Ian, Cat Stevens, The Beatles, Linda Rondstadt, Billy Joel, Elton John. I would record myself singing and (horribly) playing the guitar. I was such a loner, and such a child of my father. There was photography. There were breeding pairs of angel fish. There was all that.

This was my "coming of age" camera. I took rolls and rolls of film, and I still have all the negatives in bins in my closet. It's my goal and desire to convert all the negatives into digital form and get them on Flickr. I also want to get into a darkroom to have my way with them. There is so much good stuff there. I feel like this is such a poor representation of my skills. I so miss taking pictures!

The SRT 101 eventually died, and I graduated to a Pentax K1000, with which I took a ton of pictures too. I loved this camera also. It was my instrument, and I am ashamed to confess that I let it go in an act of stupidity. Youth. It's wasted on the young, and often on the stupid. I once was both. I am no longer that young.

I got another one but it was never the same. Now, I have a stupid point and shoot digital, and I miss miss miss the SLR!

Someday. You will see my work. Hope it's not posthumously.