Creativity

Once in awhile, I am filled with an urge to be creative. To literally create things. I'm feeling it now, burbling up from the inside, and screaming to come out.

The problem is channeling the creativity. When I was at home, I found Dad's old camera from middle school. Which is actually now MY camera because he gave it to me. When I was in high school, I went through a photography phases, and became slightly obsessed. And, if I do say myself, I was good, in an untrained kind of way.

But picking up the camera this time gave me a feeling of seeing things differently. I was amazed at the difference between digital and SLR photography. Not just the mechanics, which are, of course, different; rather, the mindset you must adopt in order to compose a shot with an old 35mm camera.

You cannot point and shoot. An SLR is designed in such a way that you must be patient to complete the act of taking a picture. First, you must compose a shot, looking with your naked eyes at the world around you, and figure out which small slice of what you see will make a photograph worth printing. Only then can you put the camera to your eye, and adjust the focus and the light. Sometimes, the picture you wish to take simply cannot be taken with the combination of light, film, location, and subject you have in front of you. You would end up with an overexposed negative, or perhaps a blur on the page. But if the light is workable (and oh, SLR, how much light you do require!), then you move onto the focus.

Dad's old Pentax came with a single lens. I have a zoom lens that I bought later, and it serves its purpose, but the non-zoom, simple lens forces you to work within limits, and use the constraints in a creative way. Often, in a single shot, you cannot focus on the entire scene in front of you, but must choose a foreground or background object on which to train your shot. These pictures have amazing depth.

I flitted around this past weekend shooting pictures of home, including many shots of my husband, and the surroundings I grew up in. In an act of sheer irony, I, forgetful about the processes involved with my beloved machine, popped open the door of the camera before rewinding the film, likely exposing the roll and ruining the pictures. I chalk it up as a learning experience, and hope to salvage a few from the beginning of the roll.

Off to Costco tomorrow, which I have been told does a quite nice job of developing. And then onto the magic of waiting for the prints.