I love photography so much. I am by nature....nosy. I want to know the back story to everything and the why's. My father was an Engineer, but dabbled in photography. In Hungary during the '56 uprising he took pictures of the fighting, the molotov cocktails being thrown at Russian tanks, a burnt head in mid scream propped on a tank.....scarey haunting images.....that I never had the nerve to ask my father about. I do know he his negatives to an American journalist and was able to buy tons of oranges for my mom, who loved the fruit that was hard to come by then in Austria, where they stayed for awhile.
He still tooled around with photography when they came to the US and settled for awhile in Brooklyn. When I was a kid and we moved to Long Island, he set up a darkroom in the basesment of our house, a sweet setup because there was a kitchen downstair where he set up the equipment, so he had the sink and a bar for the chemicals and enlarger.
My brother did photography and was very good at it and in College, I decided against Psychology and went into art. I grew to love art and photography more than anything! Strangely enough it was the process I loved, more than the finished product. My art to me was like a conversation, once it is out of my mouth it is shared and belongs to the person listening. The moment us gone. For me, what I get attached to are tools. I never had the highest end camera and these days I paint with very good paints, but just okay brushes, but I love my tools, I love what I can doo with them. My father bought me my first camera, a konica rangefinder. One day, on the Houston Street Subway platform, some kids wanted to take my camera:
"Give me your camera", the big one said.
"No," I replied. And I hit him with my huge bag, but protecting my camera.
Now, I don't recommend doing that because that is a great way to get killed. So just insure tge damn camera, and give it up to save your life.
"Damn, you crazy bitch!" Said the big guy with now a bloody nose. For some reason, they just all went away instead of hurting me. I was lucky. But that is me and my precious tool.
I wasn't so lucky later on in college, my apartment was broken into. My roomates lost their musical instruments and my newer camera, an olympus was stolen. In California, somebody came through our open door and stole my backpack, and two Nikons I had inside. Back in Mass, in Worcester, our apartment was burglarized while we were at work, and they stole my Pentax 6x7. It was painful. After each of those thefts, I would have dreams that I still had my cameras and were using them, like nothing happened and all those dreams were so vivid. My father, who was born 81 years ago today, died in 1993. Strangely enough, to this day, I dream very vivid dreams that he is still alive, that the cancer was erradicated, that rumors of his death were premature.
Back to my cameras, my conventional Nikons went with me to Paris and Budapest and to a great drag event in New York City called Wigstock in 1994. The images I took that day were priceless, but as with fishing, the best image was the one that got away. I was sitting on the concrete barrier reloading my film and talking to a gorgeous drag queen, when ahe pulled out a compact and lip gloss and started touching up her lips. Justat that second on the other side of the barrier and station wagon stopped for the light right next to her and 3 little Hasidic boys stared at her with awe! I had the right lens on the camera- a wide angle, to make that an amazing shot, but I couldn't get the film in fast enough and I missed the shot!
My cameras I felt had a spirit in them and they were trying to help me come to terms with my lose....that or my mind is trying to, which is the more plausible scientific explanation. But I was always intrigued how in Judaism or among the Japanese, there are those who believe inanimate objects carry spirits.
Nikki, my latest camera, my first digital camera, a nikon just died. She served well as my tool for 7 years and was a beloved gift from my Sweetheart. I haven't dreamt of Nikki and shooting away, but I sure wish I can take the pictures I need to of this crazy ugly city and my citizen family.
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