Got a Nikon Camera/Love to take a Photograph

       

getting fancy

In the very early years of my first marriage we were at a get-together one night – I think it was a housewarming for one of our co-workers, and another co-worker was there with her husband and their baby who was only a few months old. We noticed lots of pictures were being taken mostly because of the baby, and we saw the nice cameras that folks had. On the way home that night we got to talking about how we should probably invest in a good camera before we had our first child, that way we would already have it – researched and comparison shopped – and would not be making a hasty purchase once the baby arrived when we would be anxious to be taking good pictures.

        See how that logic worked?

guinea pig, Angel in double exposure

        And so immediately, the research began, by which I mean ex-hubby did all the work. He finally decided on a Nikon – I don't know the other particulars – it was long before digital, which meant we used film.

winter outside our apartment

       There was a dark room on my floor at the lab. So we learned to develop pictures – by that I don't mean the ex did it all by himself, I learned too – but he was much better at it. We mostly sent the color film off to be developed, but we did a lot of the black and white ourselves – making proofs and everything. I found an album that is only black and white pictures from those days. It has envelopes with the negatives in them all labeled and dated – who would ever look at them or want them? And there are a few pages of proofs. And some artsy shots of double exposures

on beach in St. Augustine

        At MAS there was a dark room for developing negatives for many years, and one weekend I took Sarah and Amanda in to teach them what I had once learned. It was a fun time, but more for bonding than new skills since the digital world took over soon after that. No more dark rooms, proofs, envelopes stuffed with unlabeled negatives.

the club-house on Zimmerman

        The first camera was replaced around 2000 with another Nikon that had auto-focus because I am the world's worst focuser, and it still did film. Mike eventually replaced that camera with digital Nikons, and of course, our cell phones. Pictures can be played with extensively on the computer – crop, brighten, collages – and color can be made into black and white.

        You know, it is not Momma who took the Kodachrome away.

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