It’s that time of the year. Joy felt Holiday celebrations are ramping up and resolutions are being planned to contribute to a brighter year ahead. Photographers make resolutions as well. Most frequently these relate to various year long projects that require us to make pictures on some scheduled basis, a switch in media or a different aesthetic forcing us to escape our creative cocoon.
In 45 years, I can count the number of cameras I have taken meaningful pictures with by using the fingers of two hands. Three of these cameras are still in regular rotation. Another is well maintained and could be of service if called upon. Two were traded in for upgrades along the way. Three now rest peacefully in happier pastures. Of these three, a Ricoh KR-30 Program, sits as a potential organ donor on a shelf in California. Two sit on a bookcase in the Photo-den of my house, a shelf below a stash of film and chemicals and a shelf above a growing collection of photobooks. They share the shelf with relics from Jenny’s family, 2 – 100 year old box cameras that work but with no right sized film to be found.
Several months ago, one of my first posts on this site was titled “Glimpses at the Conservatory.” It documented the development and near completion of a photography project I had been working on for several years. I ended the piece with some thoughts on final opportunities to add images to the collection gallery and then how to wrap the project up and what to do with it.
That isn’t really what this article was supposed to be titled. If things had gone differently it would have been “Last of the Kodachrome”.
My life with 35mm photography began in HS in the mid 80’s with a class taken the spring of my junior year. My first camera, one I still own and shoot with is a Petri 2.8. You can read about it here. It was a 1960’s era hand me down and I shot exclusively with it for a year and a half. During this time, I found room for a bathroom darkroom with a Beseler 35.
The next big gear acquisition was when I graduated from HS. My family of aunts and uncles knew what I wanted and indeed had been helping me with my passion since I got started. Everyone pooled their collective monetary congratulations and I was able to purchase my first 35mm SLR.
It was on the map, but then so was Bisti De-Na-Zin, the place our itinerary, planned weeks ago, had on our agenda for the day. That itinerary hadn’t considered the status of our legs and feet, conditioned by winter and Pandemic. After hiking trails the day before at the Petrified Forest, our feet and legs were jelly and sore.
