I love photography. If anyone thinks of me at all, it is probably as a writer; but in my heart, I am a photographer and have been for most of my life.
When I was 14 years old, my Dad purchased my first real camera — it was a Vivitar 220SL, 35mm film camera. It was manual everything — there was no autofocus back then, and the only piece of serious technology on the camera was a little needle that appeared in the viewfinder and provided an indication of whether or not I was in the ballpark in how I, also manually, set the shutter speed and aperture of the lens.
My Dad asked a friend of his to help pick the camera out from the ads in the back of photography magazines that I would literally pore through until they were dog-eared and ragged-edged. I had chosen a camera and he decided some third-party input might be a good idea. I’m sure it cost at least $180 or more, serious money in those days.
The friend, a young photographer with the small-town newspaper in the small town in which we lived, didn’t really know much about the camera itself, but he looked at me, noting the desperate expression on my face, and told my Dad, “Well, I’ve heard of Vivitar before.”
That was enough. My Dad ordered the camera, and within a week or so, it was mine.
On a side note, that young photographer soon left that small-town newspaper and went on to work for National Geographic before forging a famous and incredibly respected name for himself as a wildlife photographer, focusing mostly on wolves. I doubt Jim Brandenburg remembers that day as clearly as I do, if he remembers it at all. But to me, it was like yesterday.
That camera became my constant companion. I think I took some of my best photos with it. It seemed that was a good thing because the deal with my Dad was that I was to pay him back for it with the future royalties from my photos.
I never had the chance to do that. My Dad passed away suddenly less than a year later. He was only 43 years old.
I still have that Vivitar 220SL; for the most part it now resides in a glass cabinet. I do, however, change the small battery for the exposure needle every so often, just to be sure it will be ready in case I should somehow need to press it back into service. And while the cost of the cameras I now use are exponentially higher than that first camera, I’m not entirely convinced they are really, truly better when it comes to the end result. Oh, don’t get me wrong, shooting digital is much nicer and more convenient than slopping around in a chemical soup developing my own black-and-white film in the darkened bathroom.
Recently I found a camera that is close to my old Vivitar. It’s digital but it is entirely manual. And it only shoots in black-and-white. There is no possible way I can justify the cost of it, except that life is short and the camera brings back to me some things that I’ve long since thought were lost. I’m fairly certain both my Mom and Dad would approve.
And it has rekindled my long love affair with photography. I love shooting landscapes, but there is something magical in photographing people. Recently Michelle and I attended a large photography expo in New York. One company had body-painted models on display with studio lighting — it was a great draw for crowds, attractive young women wearing little but paint in a setting that literally called for photographs. The booth received the expected huge number of male photographers, a surprisingly large number of female photographers and a good number of pervs with iPhones who generally tried to push everyone else out of the way.
I’ll certainly admit to shooting a few photos. Well, okay, more than a few. But with my new-to-me black-and-white camera with manual focus and exposure, I purposely focused on the eyes of the attractive young women, and attempted to put them into the best possible light. At one point, I made eye contact with an exceptionally attractive model, who, just moments before, appeared to be overwhelmed by the crush of people and pervs taking photos of her. And with that eye contact, I was able to adjust the focus of the lens to her eyes. She smiled and her eyes lit up. I pressed the shutter button, mouthed the words “thank you” and she smiled again. And then she resumed being overwhelmed by those who were shooting … other attributes that she possessed and were apparent beneath the paint.
Taking someone’s photograph, in that environment or even in someone’s home for a feature article in this newspaper, requires a great deal of trust. It is my job to capture the true essence of those I photograph — that is something that is almost always wonderful — and, if I do my job and earn that trust, the resulting photos are hopefully wonderful as well.
People are beautiful and the camera, if used properly, can capture that beauty. But I do have to ask for trust. And that is a big deal.
Things changed post-9/11. People are more suspicious now, less open to share what is inside of them for a variety of reasons and fears. That makes photography more difficult, too. But still, I ask for trust. I’m not among the world’s great photographers, but it is my love, my passion. If I can earn your trust, I can promise I will always do my best to capture the real you. The beautiful you. I can see it in my mind’s eye and my camera can see it. It’s in your eyes. It is in your smile. It is always with you, but yet it is and will always be a mere moment captured with the click of a shutter. It should be a special moment.