Cameras.

My father. I guess this is going to be as much about him as cameras. Film is one of the things he left me loving. Aren't you amazed? Stupified? I'm not talking about motorcycles. I am talking about film. Film Cameras. They were something he loved, you can see a great many of them here - although I have given one or two away to friends, a Bolex Super 8mm movie camera and a 120mm knockoff of a Rollie.

The camera that I am using now, I am actually in the process of uploading a youtube video of my fiddling with it and loading it for the first time in 5 years... the Retina Automatic III. You see through most of high school and after I used a Retina IIC folding camera which you can see in the above picture (back row - dead center).

This Automatic seen here:

I can't wait to get out there and start taking pictures again. I haven't for a while. Its just not something I can do right now, and there is surely not enough light down here in the basement. There is much to be said for digital cameras - but they are not really cameras, just as cell phones are not really phones. A digital picture is a picture, but it is not a photograph - it lacks the art and style. It lacks the significance - and in my mind it does not capture the soul. There is an art - a loving art to real photography. I am not bashing on those who use digital cameras for fun for for a job, or for their art. I just personally don't believe in it. I am not a hypocrite, they are fast, light, and easy. I use one when I am moving about and I took the above to pictures with them.

Most of these pictures are digital, some of them are not. Some are digital pictures of photographs. An example of a photograph, my Great Great Grandfather, his last name was Blue, and he was a Sheriff out west.


^ Photographs last. That picture is about 120 years old and still looks much as it did when it was taken. THAT is the legacy of a photograph. Incidentally another thing I love - something I did not get from my father is pocket watches. Mom and Dad would give me one every year for Christmas. I love them deeply. This one was a gift of my Uncle John, it IS the watch carried by Blue. It is the watch that was in his pocket in that photograph. An Elgin, key wind, mechanical movement. It still runs, but the hands no longer move - I do not know why.




I MISS my father SO much. The idea that he is really gone is still heavy on my mind, just over 2 years later and I am still in shock. My father... Here is a picture I found of him when he was about 14. With it I have a picture of myself at 14. I have some of his features, though not all of them.


My Computer desktop background gives another view of my thoughts of dad, how much I miss him, always a tribute


I know that I'll need to let go - turn loose of it over time and move forward. But right now with my health, my body, the intense physical pain. I think of Dad always, I loved him so much, I cannot forget him.



I will leave you with something completely different. Richard Thompson's cover of Woodstock - as written by Joni Mitchell. This song as he sings it brings tears to my eyes, and if you watch the video - it brings tears to her eyes as well. This is a song I would like played at my funeral:





Go Now, in Peace & Love. Be Good. Be Free.