Fifty digital photos and I am still looking for the perfect capture of sea and tide. The Buddhist is perched above me on this coastal rock, his face buried in a book. He looks up at me and smiles, unaware of my inner frustration.
The waves form a pattern and I wait for the moment to hit that little round button on my new ever so clever phone.
There! Click. Fifty one.
Now. Click. Fifty two.
Hmmm. Timings off...
OK. NOW. Click. Fifty three...
All at once, I am transported back to a trip to Maine with my family in the mid 1970s. I am thirteen and have my Kodac 126 camera dangling from my wrist, an up grade from my old Brownie camera (which I would kill to own now). Babysitting money and allowance have combined to grant me two cartridges of film- a whopping forty eight photos for a one week trip. I am fully aware that more babysitting and allowance will be necessary upon my return to extract the images from the cartridges.
Forty eight photos? How did I ever decide what was worthy of setting my eye to the view finder and pressing down the button. That "Kodak Moment" sign was yet to be in vogue, so I had to rely on my instincts. Not too many photos the first few days. Make it last! Make it last! Followed by too many photos of something stupid on the last day...
Yet, the beauty of this primitive photographic system was that I was present every second of my trip. I experienced the rocks and the tide through my eyes, not a camera's lens.
AND I had to wait a week after vacation to see the results of my photo prowess. No do overs. No obsession. I wasn't musing over memories while still making them.
I laugh, turn my phone off and wave to my spouse.
3 comments:
Oh yes! Life and the Kodak 126! It did produce some decent pics, I'll say. But the Brownie? I found a Brownie film and produced it, years after the camera had met it's grave, and there were images of my family (me as a kid family, that is), my mom and dad in their much younger days, days of dark hair and slim waistline, a baby on her hip!
I am always fascinated with your writing, I'm there with you as you describe everything.
My best always to you.
So awesome. You paint a lovely picture with your words and memories. So true about the old cameras requiring your presence at every move. A great reminder to be aware of where we are and who we are with and to not get lost in today's expanding technology; technology that actually puts us further out of touch than in. I think it's called "progress" but your writing is a reminder to consider the alternatives. Thank you!
Great post!
Yoour are right. It is hard to stay awake even for one moment; Even harder to sustain it for any time.
Everything about our modern "conveniences" seems to be designed to keep us asleep; that seems to be the draw - to aid us to live out our moments wrapped in a blanket of irrelevance and numbness.
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