Dear Reader, How are you? I was at the beach for the past few days and now have a delightful glow and unmanageable funny feeling hair. I also have a nice looking scar on my arm from a friendly dog with sharp claws that was excited to see me. It looks cool - I feel like a pirate.
The following was written while sitting in an airport waiting for our delayed flight. A certain NY airport can't seem to get it's act together sometimes.
Three people in our building who want to make-out with my wife 1. Grandpa Yemen - He will chase her down and kiss her in the hallway. He does not speak English. He does know a few key phrases like, "I love you - I love you". Our joke is that he has asked her to marry him and she has unwittingly accepted - we are waiting for the day when he arrives at the door to trade her for a goat and to take her home.
2. Mr. Next-Door Sad Guitar Man - He is smooth. His question is always, "So, are you and your husband still together?" When the reply is that we are still together, he replies, "well, it can't hurt to ask". His lives next door by himself because his girlfriend or wife left him - sometimes he passes his time by playing sad classical guitar.
3. Coney Island Lesbian - She's nice. My wife for some reason kissed her on the cheek one night. It's a funny story, but not funny enough to bore you with. Actually, I don't know if she wants to make out with Mrs. Robot, but we assume she does because the rest of the building does.
(late addition - when Mrs. Robot found out I was making this list, she said not to forget the 4th person: me! But, I assume everyone would just assume that. That's a lot of assuming, eh?)
Domain Names I might want to purchase if I figure out something fun to do with it 1. modestypanel.com 2. nobodyknowswhatidoatwork.com 3. hotairportsecuritypersonnel.com 4. stoolcovereddwarf.com 5. puppysrock.com
Cameras I have owned and why they were special 1. Kodak boxy 126 film camera. My father got this camera from a guy in his office in like 1970 and I would use it a bunch when I could. Some of the noteworthy images included our trip to Sea World, Jo & Mac's Hotel, our new puppy, and our interpretation of Star Wars if it had been filmed with a still camera.
2. Late 70's Minolta Rangefinder 35mm camera. This was the "nice" camera and was the one my father used to shoot such grandmother hits such as "Boys on the swing" and "Boys and their new puppy". Years later on my first trip to NYC as a teen, I shot half a roll with no attention paid to the exposure controls. The pictures stunk.
3. Cannon Late 80's Snappy-Q. My own damn camera. I was leaving for a backpacking trip to Europe and we all flipped when we realized that I had no camera to take, other than the Minolta that was missing a battery. I bought it at a department store and it survived a wet and dirty trip through the campgrounds of Europe. I shot about 12 rolls, which yielded about 3 in focus images (apparently I moved the camera a lot). Some of the images shot with the "Q" included "blurry cathedral in Florence" and "blurry George in Switzerland".
4. Jeff's Nikon FG-20. I borrowed Jeff's camera for my first day of Photo I in college. It was a great camera because not only could you shoot manually, but it also had a cheating aperture priority mode that made my images more suspiciously better exposed than anyone else's. Sadly, I don't recall a lot of the images I shot with this one because I soon got my own camera. But, I have to give props to the FG-20 for being a fine little camera that got me started in this checking account depleting hobby.
5. Minolta XG-7. I bought this at the lovely Carolina Camera. Very exciting. This is the camera that I shot tons of stuff with. My long exposure period. My pen-light period. My burning paper bag period. My 'look at our new kitten' period. The XG-7's shutter eventually blew which was traumatic. I was devastated and took it to the local camera shop where they took it in to fix and then offered me a job. The 'camera store' job would become one of the better jobs I have had in my short little life and was where I picked up 90% of my photo knowledge from. Kudos to them.
6. Nikon 6006. Good lord what an exciting day. My XG-7 was repaired, but I wanted something a bit more modern. I saved my camera store nickels and over Christmas holiday my father and I went back to Carolina Camera (the place I worked at did not sell Nikon) and I bought the 6006. Being a camera-geek-wannabe I opted for the fixed and faster 50mm over the consumer 35-70 slow lens. The camera store guys gave me props. The 6006 was a huge step for me. I could now almost shoot real things - like events and people might actually pay me for it. It was amazing. I quickly found a used 70-200 lens, a 28mm lens, and a cool Sunpak flash. It was lovely fun. I don't want to imagine the amount of film I shot with this camera. Classic shots include "Blaine with large wine bottle", "Geezer Lake looking serious" and "Kitty shot with that nutty 12ASA film"
7. Yashica T4. Ok, this is really about the best camera on the list. In terms of price, size, lens quality, and fun factor. The T4 has a Carl Zeiss lens on it that about rocks the damn house. This quickly became my favorite camera because I could take it with me wherever I went - and I did. My favorite film was either Fuji 800 or Kodak Tmax 3200. This camera is MIA, though. I am not sure where it is. Lost? Stolen? Not sure. Happily, it was replaced by a T4 Super one year for Christmas by Mrs. Robot. Yay!
8. Nikon N90. Mamma Mia. I bought it used from Tom the eccentric camera store customer. I actually went over to his house and we sat around and watched tennis and went through his box of equipment. The N90 was a bad muthaf*cker at the time, and I had one. Bought a fancy Nikon flash and had a trunk of accessories and I was good to go. I shot the hell out of this camera - tons of "work" ran through it and it has always performed flawlessly. Still using it to this day. Still love the way it sits in my hands - it has a lovely heft to it. Classic shots include "someone getting married", "some photo of someone for something" and "grainy shots of London".
9. Rolleiflex TLR. Mark and I went out of town camera shopping one day. It was a little day trip to one of those great old-school camera shops where the place is just a mess and there are tons hidden treasures everywhere. I bought a bunch of used studio equipment and also saw a Rollei that was used. The camera was rough looking but the glass was very clean and the shutter sounded smooth. The price couldn't be beat, but that day I wasn't 100% sure what my money situation was so I passed on it. That night in bed I realized that I was a moron and I had to buy the camera pronto. The next day after scouring my finance situation, I called the store, described the camera, gave them my credit card number (5438-5543-6833-0930 x07/97) and had them ship it post-haste. The rollei shoots that big ol' 120 film, so the images were brain-numbingly sharp and the shutter was very quiet so I used it to shoot goofy little movie stills with. A fine camera that currently is in it's waterproof, custom foam cut case because the last time I used it the shutter annoyed the heck out of me (it's getting cranky in it's old age). Classic shots include "my reflection in bumper" and "Black kitty and white kitty looking out a window"
10. Sony Mavica some model number. My first digital camera. It took floppies! How cute! A fine camera, but a little large and kind of goofy to have to carry floppies with you all the time. The first night I had it I went to a superchunk show and shot a ton of floppies. It worked great. Actually, it worked way better than the tiny/uber-cool Sony P1 and the P5 which replaced it. I sold the Mavica to a guy, and it was stolen out of his car the next day. Ugh.
11. Sony P1 and then the P5. I like the P1. I sold it to my pal Jeff though so that I could buy the P5. I am not sure that was the best move. I mean, the P5 is technically a better camera, and I have taken some nice shots with it, but... I don't know. I may be expecting too much from it - I wanted a T4 with a memory stick. It delivers in some ways - in other ways the T4 blows it out of the water.
12. The Holga. It costs 20$ and takes 120 film! Nuff said! Well, I really want to love the Holga, and I do, I suppose. I shot some much-celebrated images of a friend's wedding with it once, but I rarely take it with me. I do like how everything you shoot with it looks automatically cool.
13. The Nickelodeon Photo Blaster. It allows you to shoot four images on the frame! Woo! And it looks real goofy, but girls seem to like it (as I found when going in to a camera shop one day and these model types couldn't quit fussing over it). The Photo Blaster is in the same family as my Lomo Quad Cam and my Lomo 16 frame jobby that Liz got me. They are all way fun to play with and have lots of cool art possibilities.
14. Leica M6TTL. Good lord. My life has been leading up to this one. What a camera. I don't know what is, but dammit I think I am a better photographer with it. It's totally manual, so I have to do it all, and I love it. F*ck that autofocus - sure it may be fast, but the damn rangefinder is more exact. I have a high-school crush on this camera. I am thinking more about focus, exposure, and framing and have totally fallen for the Leica mystique. Classic shots include "some cow in Scotland" and "some landscape in England".
