Resurrection~ Today, when riffling beneath my bed in search of a certain pair of winter snow boots, I came across one of my most treasured possessions; a neglected tool whose weather-beaten body has served as a medium through which I express myself.
I first purchased my Canon A-1 mechanical camera in high school, a time in my life when the darkroom served as a sanctuary, offering refuge from the stormy twist and tangle that was my life.
With college came the distraction of friends and classes to an extent that somewhat elbowed out my photographic pursuits. For the past year in particular I have been excavating other areas of my life and have left my camera lying dormant, collecting dust beneath my bed, replaced by its spiffier and speedier digital counterpart.
Given the somewhat revelatory nature of the past few days, it seems only fitting that today I finally took my camera out from beneath my bed and separated it from the wealth of dust that had gathered about its carrying case. The Canon's body felt like an old friend in my hands, and I smiled at the familiarity its sturdy mechanics struck beneath my fingers. In that moment I recalled why the sensual and graceful nature of a mechanical device, despite being slower to produce than its digital counterparts, is timeless and to be treasured. There is something grounding in the nature of an instrument whose form represents the fitting together of interlocking parts through a process of manual assembly; a means of construction that is increasingly rare in this world of superfluous speed. Our fast paced world brands a mechanical approach to just about anything “out dated” and “sluggish”…I wonder if such is why I value it so. Perhaps I am craving constancy, a metered way of moving through life. I drive a standard transmission, shoot a mechanical camera, watch old movies, ride a horse…yet I live in a city considered to be one of the most hectic urban jungles. Indeed, I find peace in solidity, in cause and effect, in the weight of my camera, and the mechanics of cogs, each piece fitting together with fluidity. Perhaps the old balances out the new and the sturdiness I favor in certain areas of my life allows the inconsistency of others.
My appreciation of mechanics and manmade devices must be, in part, hereditary. I think of my grandfather, a great sportsman and a manufacturer of firearms; I picture him holding in his small hands weaponized works of art, guns of finished wood and inlaid hand tooled silver, each piece representative of one individual’s dedication and devotion to the instrument he was building. I then think of my father and his life long love of the automobile, his understanding of the way each piece of an engine unites and connects to motivate motion. Or my mother, the artist whose pastels painted fingers can trace form over paper, weaving women’s bodies into existence with ease, how the reins fit into my hands, interlaced with my fingers ability to subtly signal…I could go on and on, in short, my family finds ourselves in manual, palpable forms. Our hands and our touch, interacting with other physical forms yields emotion and inspires us to explore.
I first purchased my Canon A-1 mechanical camera in high school, a time in my life when the darkroom served as a sanctuary, offering refuge from the stormy twist and tangle that was my life.
With college came the distraction of friends and classes to an extent that somewhat elbowed out my photographic pursuits. For the past year in particular I have been excavating other areas of my life and have left my camera lying dormant, collecting dust beneath my bed, replaced by its spiffier and speedier digital counterpart.
Given the somewhat revelatory nature of the past few days, it seems only fitting that today I finally took my camera out from beneath my bed and separated it from the wealth of dust that had gathered about its carrying case. The Canon's body felt like an old friend in my hands, and I smiled at the familiarity its sturdy mechanics struck beneath my fingers. In that moment I recalled why the sensual and graceful nature of a mechanical device, despite being slower to produce than its digital counterparts, is timeless and to be treasured. There is something grounding in the nature of an instrument whose form represents the fitting together of interlocking parts through a process of manual assembly; a means of construction that is increasingly rare in this world of superfluous speed. Our fast paced world brands a mechanical approach to just about anything “out dated” and “sluggish”…I wonder if such is why I value it so. Perhaps I am craving constancy, a metered way of moving through life. I drive a standard transmission, shoot a mechanical camera, watch old movies, ride a horse…yet I live in a city considered to be one of the most hectic urban jungles. Indeed, I find peace in solidity, in cause and effect, in the weight of my camera, and the mechanics of cogs, each piece fitting together with fluidity. Perhaps the old balances out the new and the sturdiness I favor in certain areas of my life allows the inconsistency of others.
My appreciation of mechanics and manmade devices must be, in part, hereditary. I think of my grandfather, a great sportsman and a manufacturer of firearms; I picture him holding in his small hands weaponized works of art, guns of finished wood and inlaid hand tooled silver, each piece representative of one individual’s dedication and devotion to the instrument he was building. I then think of my father and his life long love of the automobile, his understanding of the way each piece of an engine unites and connects to motivate motion. Or my mother, the artist whose pastels painted fingers can trace form over paper, weaving women’s bodies into existence with ease, how the reins fit into my hands, interlaced with my fingers ability to subtly signal…I could go on and on, in short, my family finds ourselves in manual, palpable forms. Our hands and our touch, interacting with other physical forms yields emotion and inspires us to explore.
Inspiration is created by connection; this afternoon, holding my heavy bodied camera, feeling its parts move beneath the surface of its metallic exterior as I advanced the film or clicked past stops on the way to a fitting aperture, I felt as if I held a little part of myself, a part of my potential not yet recognized and a unifying actor along my ever winding way to self knowledge.
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