Inspired by a recent exchange with a film photographer and a dive into photo blogs exploring and practicing life as film photographers. I decided to revisit some of my past by unpacking and examining what’s left of the film cameras I collected and used in the early stages of my life as a photographer. The last twenty or so years of selling, trading, and donating bodies and lenses have more than cut in half the remnants of my humble beginnings. Looking back, I’m reminded that you can’t keep it all and can’t remain sane while holding on to the past. Below is a link to one of the You Tube channels I’ve been enjoying.
Tag: Collecting
If These Walls could Talk
We were heading home from a road trip when my wife asked if I wanted to stop anywhere before our final stop in Seattle. Having become more savvy with maps and my geography, I nonchalantly suggested a visit to Funko’s headquarters in Everett. Though she agreed, she immediately included the stipulation that I do not buy anything. “Gosh, what’s the fun in that?” I thought as I mumbled something about having five items on my list. We quickly found a parking spot headed inside and eventually went our separate ways. When she finally found me I had quickly found Sting, Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland (The Police) and two Johnny Cash Funko toys. I don’t know if it was the evil eye or the reminder that I regularly complain about having too many things (Which I do.) but I immediately returned the items to their shelves and returned to my wife’s side like a wounded child who’s Halloween candy had been confiscated. When I returned home. I stood amongst the toys and records that have taken over our second bedroom and wondered how I got here and when will I decide to get out. I hope that time comes sooner than later.
Memories Remain
Strangely enough, I have little to no memories of my parents time together. Being that their marriage was long over by the time I was six and legally documented by divorce papers before I ever entered the second grade at the age of seven. It’s hard to recall or visualize much at all. The two or three events that have stuck with me all these years are not, by any means worth revisiting.
As I do grow older, many of the memories of my very early life have been kept alive and unexplainably visual through story telling and writing about people and events that took place so many years ago. Some of my stronger memories from that time revolve around the toys and for the most part, action figures I collected throughout my childhood. Graduating to puberty and eventually adulthood. Much of the collections from my childhood were sold, donated or given to anyone willing to take them. In some very rare cases. I’ve come to reacquire some of the rarer or more unique items through flea markets and ebay searches.
For years I somehow held on to the the memory of one of my Mom’s eccentric friends giving me a Horshack figure from the then popular show “Welcome Back Kotter”. No, not Vinnie Barbarino, Freddie (Boom Boom) Washington, Epstein of even Mr. Kotter. The one and often lonely only Horshack. In limited searches over the years I’ve seen the boxed figure going upwards of sixty bucks on Ebay. I’ve even come across a buck naked, broken legged one at a Connecticut Flea Market priced at a dirty thirty. Finding this excellent condition nerd DeJour on Ebay for the price of a happy meal gave me an enduring nerdgasm I won’t soon forget. After years of searching. I finally hit gold. The only thing left to do was share. Enjoy.
Photogeek Blog 