This was my first camera. There is nothing special about it, other than the fact that it became my introduction to an art form that has stuck with me for over 20 years. I still relive small moments time to time that brings me back to this little pink toy; to a point when I was a child no older than ten. Things like the smell from opening a new roll of film or hearing the shutter click as I stare intently at whatever it is that I see through that viewfinder. Most importantly it created a love affair with art, interpretation, and those intangible feelings and thoughts that come with experiencing a piece of artwork for the first or 40th time.
I was always pretty excited to take occupational aptitude tests in middle and high school. Every year, without fail, my results yielded something that pointed me towards the arts – much to the dismay of my mother, who tried to push towards meteorology, despite years of near-to-failing science grades. Her reasoning being that advancing technology would never take the place of the person that had to interpret weather patterns for the masses…that, and it paid more than she or my father made, and nearly every parent wants a better life for their child. I wasn’t into that, and would rather argue that you’d still need someone to hold the paintbrush to the canvas to create a painting, and that money didn’t matter as much as she thought it did.
We agreed to disagree. Neither of us were ever very good at being wrong.
That little pink camera has been replaced with a large format 4×5 camera, multiple 35mm cameras, and a line of Nikon DSLRs, but the things I learned about myself from using it have outlived many of my other passing interests. Because of that little camera, I’ve found myself in a small population of creators contained within a city of nearly 200,000 residents, forging relationships with gallery owners and artists. For someone like myself that shudders at the thought of networking, it has become a necessary evil which I find that I have to deal with constantly; one that I’m not too terrible at. Much like art, its something you must practice in order to improve.
Through these experiences, I’ve familiarized myself with the types of art, the mediums in which they are produced, and the overall caliber that is customary in the area. It has forced me to stay engaged and informed about the arts and culture around me on a regular basis, and hope to be able to use this blog as a means to engage you all in these things that I find most dear.