It was a warm, though not altogether hot, June day back in 1971, a time when my family still lived in New York. This particular day was special, as I was graduating from kindergarten from Cedar Street School in Uniondale. The school no longer stands, being razed a year later and eventually turned into a park. It should also be noted that the original building of the high school I graduated from was torn down in 2001. The bookends of where I started and ended my compulsory public education are both gone forever. I do not recall much of my kindergarten graduation day, but what I do remember is that my great-grandmother was on hand to see it. Not many people have the opportunity to know at least one of their great-grandparents, so I consider myself lucky to have known and to have clear memories of her.
Following whatever ceremony I’m sure they conducted that day, my great-grandmother presented me with a gift, and not just in the physical, material sense. On that day she gave me my first, working camera along with a roll of black and white film. I stood by eagerly as somebody helped load the film into the camera. The very first picture I ever shot was of my great-grandmother standing on the steps of my school. I remember it well, though I haven’t seen the picture in many, many years. It may be gone for good, or it could be lost in one of the large boxes of photographs my mother has at her place. I’m hoping the latter is true as I would love to have that picture enlarged and framed.
What I was given that day nearly forty years ago was not just a camera, but a first taste of what would become my love of photography and photographs in general. Over the years I would enjoy looking at photographs in books but only occasionally got to shoot any photos myself. There would be chances to shoot during trips and vacations using my grandparent’s Kodak Instamatic camera that required you to manually advance the film. And let’s not forget the square flashcube that sat on top, with four single-use bulbs inside. After you were done with one flashcube, you’d pop it off and put a new one on. If you remember those features, you really are showing your age, as am I.
It wasn’t until the rise of digital camera that I began to shoot pictures in earnest. My first one was a low resolution Sony Mavica which stored images on a floppy disc. The camera that replaced that one was also a Sony, though with a much higher image resolution and stored images onto memory sticks. It was with that camera that I really began giving thought to how to compose shots, though I wasn’t really learning photography per se. It wasn’t until Christmas 2004 that that all changed. That year my wife gave me my first real camera, a Canon 300D DSLR. It was a bit overwhelming at first, reading the instructional manual and trying to figure out what all those buttons and settings were used for. None of it made any sense and didn’t for quite some time.
I had perused pictures shot locally on Flickr for a while, debated whether or not to start an account there. There were quite a number of local photographers whose skills and talents intimidated me to the point where I just didn’t want to be embarrassed by posting mediocre pictures. By September 2007 I had decided to take the plunge and join the ranks on Flickr. By that time I had been experimenting with using shutter speed and aperture size with mixed success. Usually I could save an image by correcting it in Photoshop, though not always. It also occurred to me that by adding myself to the list of local photographers on Flickr, it would compel me to learn my camera inside and out—and it did. The epiphany came while shooting an old red barn not too far from my house. A number of the pictures I took on that day just weren’t turning out like I had hoped they would. I had just finished reading a book on DSLR cameras, and the light clicked on in my head to set the shutter speed and aperture settings in conjunction with each other instead of independently of each other. Suddenly the pictures I was shooting looked just like I wanted them to.
For the past three years I’ve been fairly aggressively pursuing my hobby, shooting primarily landscapes and structures (abandoned and/or historic) while branching out into other types of imaging, such as high dynamic resolution and infrared images. My camera has seen a lot of use in the almost six years I’ve had it. But of late my hobby has seemed less of a hobby and more of a job—and an unpaid one at that. The things I’ve found fun, such as traveling to small towns or heading out into the countryside to find things to document (either solo or with others) have been replaced by not so fun stuff that are completely at odds with my sense of independence and desire to be alone for a few hours at a time with my camera, hoping that the dirt road I’m driving down holds something that would make a really good subject for a picture or two. There was also frustration that I wanted to do more than shoot landscapes and buildings, but the idea of moving into portraits just makes me really uneasy for a number of reasons. Things just got to the point where I did something I’ve never done before: put my camera in its bag, put the bag away, and did not touch either for a couple of months. Stopped carrying my camera around just in case, no desire to take any pictures of anything, all but closed down my Flickr account, just a total disconnect from anything dealing with photography.
But it’s time to pick the camera up again. The motivation and inspiration to do so came from a couple of sources, one being someone who has no idea they were a motivating factor and I’m not about to tell them. The other being it’s fall. To pass up a chance to get outdoors and document the trees as the leaves change color, I’d be crazy to pass up such an opportunity—though some will simply say I’m just crazy regardless of the opportunity at hand. You could say the shutter bug is back, and now I want to get out and shoot for fun.
I had the chance to visit my great-grandmother’s gravesite a couple of years ago while on a trip back to New York. Her granite marker is the closest I can come to a face-to-face with her, so I took a picture of it. She was the subject for the very first picture I took; I wonder how she’d feel knowing she was also picture number 19,090 that I took with my Canon camera?
