Me an' my photos

Time is a funny thing - it ebbs, flows, passes, lags, etc. One way to capture it is through pictures - one second in time forever frozen, based on what you were seeing or thinking about at that particular moment. This process has changed so much since the invention of the cell phone - the term "viral" has taken on a new meaning due to these devices.

Once upon a time, we had cameras - stand-alone portable devices that were used to capture images on film. Film was available in different formats based on your camera type, and different speeds. For single lens reflex (SLR) cameras, 100 to 1000 was the typical range - the lower the number, the less grain, light exposure, and slower image capture speed you got. The most "instant" images we could get were from Polaroid cameras, whose film packs allowed pictures to develop before your eyes.

You only had a particular opportunity to snap your picture the way you think you wanted it to look - I won't go into the myriad settings on a camera (especially a SLR) other than Auto being my best friend. Once you were done with that single shot, you were at the mercy of how many pictures you had left on the roll - a concept lost to time nowadays. Then it was off to a photo developer (I used to use O'Henry's a lot in NYC, and Fotomat was a popular store) to turn your film in and have to wait a week or so until your photos came back.

Now you were ready for "discovery" time! This was where you'd review your shots and either say "That's exactly what I wanted" or "Who/what/where is that?" Unless you were very meticulous, a few of your shots were completely incomprehensible and remain a mystery to this day! On the flip side, there are pictures we have that may have held meaning at some point but no longer do, victims of the ravages of time on the memory.

Those days are really gone.

Now we have photographic devices integrated into our portable devices that allow you to not only capture an image, but even text and sounds INSTANTLY. The new term for this is "viral", in the sense that the time and "distance" to see and share these images has respectively shrunk and grown. You also no longer have to guess about images you've taken - you see them a second later, and you make the decision whether or not to save it or trash it.

Another thing that's changed is the actual media itself. Polaroid discontinued their instant film packs (good thing Fuji realized there is still a market for them), and film rolls take up less space in stores. Now you just purchase large capacity memory cards (and I still think Kodak missed the boat on this ENTIRELY) and save your images on a chip that can be moved to different devices. Going to make prints from your images is an afterthought, not the only option, and most people's printers are good enough to create prints. You have now become the photographer, editor, processor, and developer of your life.

Is this a good thing? That's a double-edged sword - it was kind of nice to have mystery and limits to what pictures you could or would take in a given situation. On the other hand, we can tailor or experiences on the fly to reflect our mood at the time rather than at a later time. Heck, we can even group them together in a virtual album and theme it in almost infinite ways.

Me an' my toys - Minolta XG-M camera

1981 - Minolta XG-M 35 mm camera

During the summer of 1981 I started to get a yearning to express my creative side by undertaking photography as a hobby, but I had no camera. This was prompted by those visits to Willoughby's when I owned my projector and would drift into the camera department. Talking to a friend of mine at school who had an Olympus 35mm camera and let me borrow it for a few days, I decided to get one. I picked up a few photography magazines, and an ad just hit me for... the Minolta XG-M camera!

It was a brand new model that Minolta was bringing out that year and it looked to have all the features I wanted. I also bought a Minolta book that was a guide to 35 mm photography (I still have it!) and it opened my mind up to the possibilities. I kept reading about the camera and photography in general until I got back to school in September 1981, where I hooked up with my friend with the Olympus again. He was taking a photography class at Hunter, and I would tag along to see what they were learning. I even learned how to print negatives in the school's photography lab which really made me appreciate the entire process.

October 30th was the day I went to Willoughby's and bought the camera - finally I could take all the shots I wanted and create my own album of photos. My initial focus was on my friends at school and my neighborhood, along with shots at home. It wasn't until I started to travel that my eye for "postcard shots" began to develop. The following pictures were taken in Antigua (1983), Bermuda (1987), and Curacao (1992).

I used this camera for over 18 years and I feel that I have taken some amazing pictures over that time with it. It's retired now that I'm using a Canon PowerShot S2 IS digital camera now, but I wouldn't be able to take the great shots I can if not for my first SLR.