Toy Camera

Moments count

“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” ― Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Probably a very good way to describe my fumblings with photography over the past few years. Thanks to digital I crossed the threshold of that many photos eons ago but likely enough still make more bad photos than good. But. while I think he is right saying that your first however-many shots are crap, they can still transport you back in space and time.

Particularly photos that you made from a time when you explored, adventured and learned important lessons about this planet and its inhabitants. That’s all that photography is for me, a process by which I freeze space and time and store those moments ready to be looked at later down the line. Maybe it’s not that deep at all but I like to analyse things and think about the things I do more than is probably healthy for me.

We had stopped on the journey across the American continent on a pull out from I-80 and stumbled upon a bunch of RVs parked along a lake side. They had moved in on this area and made it a fixed residential area from which the inhabitants avoided rent/mortgage payments in the nearby town. I wrote about it in the post below.

Earlier on in the year I bought a point and shoot camera that was recommended to me by a friend who shot weddings on film. She swore by it and even used it on shoots that she had booked for clients. I tested it in the summer and it brought some nice results. I couldn’t care about writing a gear review, the YouTube fiends likely have 1001 of those ready but I liked the Kodak Ektar. I’ m a simpleton, I like things that work well without being too much hassle. Aim through the viewfinder and bang, off you were documenting moments that pass in front of you.

I dropped the point and shoot in the water on the way back from my little excursion with the locals and thought that I had buggered the camera, finding out otherwise would also have to wait until California. The joys and inconveniences of film. I guess in a way dropping your digital in the water would have been far more inconvenient than this mishap.

Nonetheless I liked how these shots came out. Grainy, gnarled and somewhat unusual in the traditional sense. But it’s kind of what I like about film photography, the aspect of not knowing what might happen with your photos. Dropping the camera in water definitely helped add the strange psychedelic effect over the top of the shots. They rendered otherwise random frames into a cacophony of cool and edgy photos.

It depends what photography means to you but for me capturing these moments in time was really heightened by me dropping my camera. I really liked that blue streak effect that rendered a golden sunny afternoon into a hazy happening. In my mind when I think back on nice moments they’re seldom replayed in high definition, maybe there is some kind of wiring problem, but in my mind this is how moments are replayed and re-hashed. Warm, fuzzy and a bit wonky.

i’ll warm my bones by the fire

Looking back on different trips i’ve taken there is a something nice about having a few frames that we’re gnarled by a thing that happened on the trip. I almost thought the camera was broken when it dropped and elated to find out it had actually continued firing the whole way across the country eventually delivering me some visual joy.

Grainy, out of focus and not really telling a coherent story at all these shots could we have been made anywhere in the world. To me though they have a distinctive meaning. I know I made them in Nebraska and the fact that they’re ruined by watermarks makes me like them even more. A reminder to myself that being a photographer is not really about others and what you give them but what the medium does for you. These frames brought me happiness and nostalgia from a journey that only recently ended.

Thanks for reading along as always

Steve