Digital Camera Envy?
The first time I went to the Hoover Dam was with my Father, who took great joy in sharing the world with us. He would stop at historical sites, roadside curiosities, ball parks, interesting eateries, and natural wonders, weaving wonderful tales about the locations we were seeing, making sure we were experiencing the moment – still my most favorite thing to do.
Recently, Kate and I stopped at Hoover Dam, which we had first toured in September of 1993; I desired to go back for one reason, I wanted pictures!
I have digital camera envy, or perhaps better stated: I envy those of you who are growing up in the digital camera world. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, neighbors, friends, and even strangers will take not dozens of pictures of you, or hundreds, or even thousands, but rather hundreds of thousands.
Your lives will be so thoroughly documented; you will never forget a thing. From the moment your parents decided to conceive you, throughout the pregnancy, your birth, your first day of life, first week, first month, and for every other first and second or third, for that matter, there will be a picture! It is not just that you will have pictures of every birthday, graduation, championship race, high school dance, and vacation; but you will have photographs of the places you ate, what the food looked like, and with whom you shared those meals. For you, there will never be a family argument over who gets to keep the original picture of your grandmother and who gets the copies, as there will be at least dozens of the originals, taken seconds apart.
I know debate already rages about our electronic footprint, and it may well be that those of you who have been so perhaps, overly photographed, may one day “rage against the machine”; but that is a conversation I will not be around to participate in, so until then we will relish that your history is being so completely captured.
I grew up in a world where owning a camera was a middle class luxury. There were families in America’s cul-de-sacs with 8mm cameras and projectors, and many people had slide projectors, which would be pulled out on Saturday nights, to show friends and families vacation shots, and yes there was the now mythical Polaroid camera, which magically allowed photographs to be developed in front of your very eyes! I saw cameras grow smaller, become disposable, and even become a part of the phone. But none of these accomplishments, in photography, pale with the amazement of the full blown digital camera, which allows you seemingly endless snap shots, which can be uploaded to your computer in minutes, and then printed or shared with the world, all from the comfort of your home.
Repeatedly, I am surprised by the number of pictures which I take with my digital camera. A days outing can result in me uploading three to four hundred pictures – how is that possible? It is much easier than I imagine.
To start with, I will take ten shots of the same image. I know that I can come home and delete the nine which are less than perfect; the problem of course, is that when I start to go through the ten identical images, I will notice some small nuance, which I believe differentiates shot three from four and four from five . . . and end up deleting maybe only one or two of those identical shots. Thus, I need more space on my computer, to store the ever increasing stash of pictures.
It is quite wonderful to not have to think about purchasing film, which has always been expensive, or having it developed, or debating whether or not to order duplicates, and then decide who I will share the second set of prints with. I often mail pictures, especially to friends who are not part of the social media world, and are thus unable to view the abundance of daily shots we post, but still enjoy “seeing” how those they love look, while on vacation or sitting in their new car. It is quite glorious to simply hit “print” and not worry about duplicates.
At one time, my father owned a photography business, and I remember with great glee, him letting me play around in his lab, developing my pictures – and being able to make countless copies of the photographs, I would take on my 35mm Pentax, which he gave me. It was the second camera he had given me; the first was a Polaroid, which for no reason at all, he gave me when I was a child, in grade school, the third camera he gave me was one of his Nikons, which I still love.
I thank him not only for inspiring me to photograph life, but for insisting on family portraits. I so often wish he could have lived to see the wonders which technology have brought to our daily lives; and I so often wish I had more pictures, especially of the people and places, in my pre-digital life!
A few years ago, like so many people whose lives were captured with Kodak, I started scanning old photographs, into my computer, mostly to share them with family, but also to preserve them. I repeatedly ran across one or two pictures of some life changing moment, like the first time I went to Europe and sadly realized that was it, there really were only a handful of photographs. I was gone for a couple of months, if I recall correctly, and it seems had only one role of film, 24 exposures, for a Pocket Instamatic. Today, not only would I know the exact length of the trip, but I would know every destination, every meal, and every stranger I spoke with, without having to go through my journal or passport or scrapbook; ah, the joys of ephemera.
I do have to stop and wonder, if you have two or three thousand pictures of your week in Jamaica, do you bother to save the airline ticket, matchbook from the only real restaurant you went to, or sales receipt from the first piece of art you ever purchased? Do you hold on to well-worn maps you used to navigate in Paris or the flimsy paper tickets from the Metro, or the swizzle stick, a kind Trans World Airlines hostess put in your gingerale, understanding that you were a silly eighteen year old who was pretending to be grown up? Do you bother keeping a journal or sending post cards to your Mother, who you know will hold on to them, for you, or hang up the same silly, homemade photo collage of Rome for thirty years?
When I sat down to update these pages, after the last road trip, I went to the pictures of Hoover Dam, looking for the perfect View From the Road shot. As I was looking through the countless shots of Hoover Dam, which we took that day, including our first “Selfie”, I kept thinking about the picture of Hoover Dam, which I took there with Kate, and which made me feel that my photographic trove for the dam was lacking. The one picture seemed so small, a panoramic view printed as a 4X6, and lifeless, but I nevertheless, went back to look for it. As I held it in my hand, comparing it to the dozens of pictures I had just taken, I noticed what a remarkable shot it actually was. Unlike all of the new pictures, which were taken from atop the dam, my one old picture was taken from the floor of the dam, looking up – showing off this truly majestic feat of human engineering and hutzpah. I then found I had this very happy picture of Kate. There was still no photographic evidence that I had been to the dam, except, of course, that someone had to have taken those pictures, and that was me, I was the photographer.
Perhaps, if you are only going to get one or two attempts to capture a moment, you know you need to make them count. There was a lesson in my little picture, and I knew it. We only get this one life, and we have to live it to its fullest, with quality always outweighing quantity.
I am very happy to have all of these amazing shots of Hoover Dam now, not only is it a marvel, but it has a great accessibility, which allows you to quite literally touch it! Thus, if you ever find yourself tired of the Strip, on a Sunday afternoon, in Las Vegas, take the drive to Hoover Dam; you will be glad you did. But I am also very happy to have the two pictures from the first time Kate and I went to the dam, took a tour, which consisted of just the two of us and a very chatty guide, whose name I simply do not remember, but who gave us access to places, which are no longer open to the public. And, I am exuberant remembering going to the dam with my Father, who I am sure laid the foundation for me insisting that Kate see the dam, and my desire to share it with you – even if there is not a single picture of that day.
Take a picture, save a ticket stub, share in life today – That Is All For Now.
our first “selfie”
