Hands On, Cameraman

Cameras. Cameras inspire me. I like to pretend I know everything walking into a camera store, when really I know less about the technology that is cameras than I could throw one. I just like looking at them and envisioning the sharp quality the $1000 machines of metal and glass could produce.

I never took photography in high school. I took drawing and painting until they told me there weren’t anymore classes (thus I was always the youngest in each level) and then started taking digital art my senior year. I never really thought anything of photography, other than “Gee, those cameras look expensive and I don’t know how people navigate around a dark room.”

I personally have never had the feeling that all the girls in photography thought they were hot stuff, most of the photography kids I knew were actually very good with a camera and didn’t wast time taking pictures of lawn chairs and calling it art. They knew how to get the grade and what to take pictures of and truly loved the class and their talent. I know a bunch of people have this thing against photography—oh right you’re just doing this frilly camera crap, how about getting a real job? But when someone has any sort of knowledge about art, they know how to take a good photo. The rule of thirds and so on and so forth; it helps tremendously.

Then there’s just the technology itself—how the hell did someone think up a camera? And the science behind it? The light exposing the film and crystals gathering in certain areas and transferring over in the chemical bath… How did anyone stumble upon this? I have to have a camera on me at all times now that digital cameras are so inexpensive and so…everywhere. I use it to take pictures of my friends and to take pictures of art I like, pieces of furniture I think will work with my apartment, patterns that might or might not match something back home, etc. Digital cameras though, they’re the easy way out, aren’t they?

I went to my 8AM three-hour lab for one of my film classes this morning, yes I did. I don’t know how, because all my other classes start pretty much after noon…but I made it there (not on time. Because I refuse to run for a bus). Same class I talked about in my last post that’s requiring this big personal photo project. In the lab we got to play with fancy 35mm cameras. I haven’t touched one of those in…since 4^th grade. (Math, come on work for me here) Nine years. And what I remember were just the cameras that used 35mm film but auto adjusted and had flash and all that. This is a legit camera.

Also expensive. And it belongs to the school. But we get to play with them for a week before the working on the project.

When I have a camera in my hands, especially one like this, I like to make an effort to take good pictures and to try to make things look vaguely artistic. And boy, oh boy, does the camera make a difference. With this, I especially want to make that effort—given there are only 24 exposures per roll and those suckers are hard to find (and cost money, boo)! Well, black and white exposures are, and since the project’s going to be B/W I wanted to practice with it. But right, knowing this thing has the potential to take fantastic pictures just makes me want to burst out the door and play photographer in the fields and tree-y areas outside. You can only take so many pictures of the interior design before you begin to think you’re wasting film.

Besides, looking over my photo albums on the Mac, there are a very small number of pictures (taken on a digital camera) that hold any artistic value. I’d love to take a few that could be hung up—the last time I took shots that good was, again, in high school when I remember taking pictures of the butterfly garden at the museum.

This was from my trip to Cozumel the summer before last on a digital camera.

I just like art. Good art. It makes me happy and I miss the class!