When I was about 10 years old, I got my first camera. It was a Kodak Brownie camera and came as an entire kit- the camera, a roll of black and white film, a neckstrap, batteries, and a set of three flashcubes. That was all it took to launch what has become a lifelong love affair with photography. I took a lot of pictures with that camera - pictures of my family, of our house, of the beach when we went to visit my aunt, and even of my toys. I took as many pictures as my parents would allow- remember film and processing were pretty expensive-- and I still have many of those images.
I have no idea how many photographs I have taken over the years. A conservative guess might be 20,000, a number that is increasing rapidly since I switched to digital about three years ago. If you had asked me ten years ago why I took so many photographs, I probably would not have been able to answer very cogently. It was just something I did and enjoyed a great deal.
The real reason for my love of photography became clear when, ironically, I had no camera.
We were in England in the summer of 2003. We had spent a lovely week in London and were enjoying a week in the Lake District. We decided to go for a hike around Derwentwater, a small lake near our cottage. The day was sunny and warm; the trail was quite steep in spots and we got pretty sweaty. We were all pleased that a long stretch of the trail meandered around the perimeter of the lake sometimes allowing us access to the cool refreshing water. At one point, I stood on a flat rock at the water’s edge and leaned over to splash some water on my face when the rock tipped and I fell in. This was no big deal for me, but of course my trusty camera (by then I was using a Canon A1 SLR which I dearly loved) also went for a brief swim. The roll of film was almost used up anyway, so I removed it and looked to see if the interior had gotten wet. It looked ok and at first I thought everything would be fine. However, that was not to be. The camera did not work, would not work, and in fact never worked again.
I spent the remaining few days of our trip without a camera. Al had one, so we do have plenty of very nice photographs of those last few days. However, I felt oddly disconnected from the trip. It was as if part of me wasn’t there. I realized that without my camera, I didn’t know what to look at. There was too much to see all at once, and I had become dependent on using the camera lens to focus my attention within the scene.
I realized that photography affects not only how I see the world, but also how I interact with it. When I have my camera, I am always on the lookout for something interesting or beautiful and since I am actively looking for something interesting or beautiful, I am pretty likely to find something. It becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy and as a result, I have come to expect and believe that the world is an interesting and beautiful place. My photographic skills don’t always measure up and the image I record is not always the image I see in my mind, but that is almost secondary. It is the act of finding beauty and reacting to it that gives me joy and raises my spirits. Without photography, I would miss so much and my life would be diminished.
Today I am grateful to have our whole family back in the same state again!
PS A couple people have questioned whether Brownie Cameras ever had flashcubes. I did a little web research and found a picture of my camera-- the Kodak Brownie Fiesta Model R4 (manufactured from 1966-1970). Here is a picture of one and you can see the flashcube socket in the upper left.
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