I shipped off the last piece of my Nikon camera set on Friday.
I have written here about how my interest in photography has lessened as my interest in writing this blog has increased. I wrote about how I recognized that I was so intent on getting the great shot that I failed to savor the moment at the ocean, or the waterfall, or wherever I was.
I decided that simplifying, and not carrying around a camera bag with multiple lenses was the right thing to do. I wrote about how I bought a Canon pocket camera for our Alaska trip, and while that got me some great pictures, it wasn’t quite what I wanted. I ended up with a compact digital, a Nikon P500, which provides me with a familiar feel and familiar functions, but in a much simplified manner, without the bag and multiple lenses. Even at that, we’ve gone on trips where I haven’t taken it out of its case.
I realized that I needed to get rid of my D70 and its multiple lenses. But realizing and doing are two different things. I hung on it for a long time, not being able to let go, even though I knew I wouldn’t go back to using it. I even had all of lenses packed up in their original boxes and put into shipping boxes, ready to list them on eBay. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do that.
Finally I took a Sunday afternoon and listed everything. It all sold. And really, it was the right thing to do. I have my P500 for the shots I want to take, and I ended up with a nice balance in my PayPal account that I can use for fun indulgences like Amazon and iTunes gift cards. But mostly I know I can stand by the ocean and enjoy the moment and not feel like I’m missing some picture I really need to capture.
That’s a good thing.
I really have gotten past the point where I feel I have to have my camera in my hand every moment when we’re out and about on vacation. At Cambria last week, Monday afternoon and all of Tuesday were gray and overcast. I left my camera in the drawer and was content to enjoy the experience of being by the ocean and walking the Cambria boardwalk with Terry. Wednesday cleared up and I took my camera. I got some good pictures, I think, but I didn’t feel the urge to get every conceivable shot.
That makes for a more enjoyable, relaxing time away, I do believe.
A reflection from our Goose & Turrets Getaway — Presidents' Day Weekend 2011
When we were at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve there was a young couple, obviously madly in love, looking out over the bluff in awe of the crashing waves. It had been stormy the past few days and it was high tide, so the ocean was really showing its power. We learned later that they were from upstate New York, and had only been out here for seven months. Given that I can appreciate their reaction. I'm a native Californian and still often feel that way by the ocean.
They asked Terry to take a picture of them, but she deferred to me, since she was busy with her new camera, and I was without that day. I took two shots with their pocket digital. They took the camera back and looked at them in the LCD display. The woman smiled and said, "Thanks. They're great!"
That by itself would have been enough to have made my day.
I made a big shift in perspective last week.
I've written here about how my interest in photography isn't what it once was, and about my desire to focus on my writing. This, of course, becomes closely tied to what I carry to Alaska with me when Terry and I go there in May. I wasn't all that excited about carrying my camera bag on the trip. After our Montara weekend, and seeing Terry use her new Canon SD4500 IS I decided there was no reason for me 
not to take something similar to Alaska. When we got home I ordered a Canon SX210IS.
The camera arrived Thursday, and so far I love it. It has a lot of features, more than I expected. I have to say the paradigm is different from what I am used to, and that will take some, well, getting used to. When I moved from my Nikon film N80 to my digital D70 in 2004 the process was nearly seamless. The cameras functioned in a very similar manner. The D70, I understand, was, in fact, modeled on the N80.
A pocket digital, though, is designed from the ground up as a pocket digital, and so functions on a different working model. That's fine though. I'll adapt. In fact, I'm excited. It's a liberating thought to be taking take the Canon to Alaska, rather that lugging my camera bag with my D70 body, four lenses, two hoods, multiple filters, cleaning tools, and a partridge in a pear tree.
It's a new perspective indeed. I'll keep you updated.
A reflection from our Goose & Turrets Getaway — Presidents' Day Weekend 2011
I did something on this trip that I've never done since I've been seriously taking photographs. I deliberately left my camera at home.
I wrote last fall about how my passion for photography had diminished, and about how I was becoming more interested in writing the best paragraph than in taking the best picture.
My camera bag could become more of a boat anchor for me than something that holds the brushes and paints (if you will) that I enjoy using to capture a moment. As I noted when writing about Burney Falls last autumn, “I would be so focused on getting the right picture that I would almost lose sight of the moment right then and there.” I caught a whiff of getting beyond that at Burney Falls.
On this trip, we headed out to the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, Terry with her new Canon SD4500 IS pocket camera which we bought for our Alaska cruise and rail trip in May, me with no camera at all. I savored the moment. I absorbed the pounding of the waves at high tide. I breathed deeply in the stiff breeze. I watched the elephant seals resting.
It was marvelous.
This is not to say that I'm giving up photography entirely. It is to say that I'm giving it a different perspective and priority.
Last Thursday the last lab in the world to process Kodachrome film processed its last roll. Kodak had discontinued manufacturing the film itself in June 2009, and also stopped producing the chemicals to process the film the same year. That left Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas the ability to process film through the end of 2010.
I took a moment to grieve after reading that New York Times article. (Thank you Facebook friend Margaret for bringing it to my attention.) True, I bought my Minolta D70 digital SLR camera (the one I still use) in 2004, and have not looked back. And true, as the 21st Century began, I reached a point where I only occasionally shot Kodachrome. Kodak had greatly improved its Ektachrome line, and Fuji had some superb slide films. Both were much easier to get processed. Still, there is so much history there.
My grandfather shot Kodachrome. My father shot Kodachrome. I shot Kodachrome. There's a lot of family history recorded on Kodachrome. I learned a lot about photography shooting Kodachrome.
The world moves on and photography has gone digital, but we'll always remember Kodachrome, which played such a big role in chronicling so much of so many of our lives.
I had one of those associative memory moments on Saturday evening. I was pulling out our Yosemite Lodge wine glasses, and I thought about our last trip there. We didn't get a room in the building we prefer and always request, but rather in another building which happened to be next to the bus turnaround. And there were a lot of buses. We had had one of those middle-aged moments when we made our reservations, and had made them for the week before Memorial Day, instead of two weeks before when we usually go. Yosemite was crowded to say the least. Not our favorite Yosemite trip by any means.
As usual I took a lot of pictures. I shared them online with my colleagues at work. One of them commented, "How peaceful and serene." Not at all.
I realized on Saturday as I was pulling out the wine glasses that when I take photographs I lie. And when I write I don't.
Now I don't use Photoshop to take an image of the moon from one picture and put into another where the moon wasn't. But when I frame a shot, I do so as to remove as much evidence of people and man-made structures as possible. And when I get home I will use Photoshop to remove signs, overhead wires, and sometimes people.
When I write, I write truthfully. I do, as I have said, reserve the right to make omissions. But whatever I do say is true to the best of my understanding, belief, or recollection.
It's an interesting dichotomy I hadn't considered before. Or maybe not a dichotomy at all, in the context of "omission."
