Can I take your picture?

I’ve always loved photography, and am learning to be better at it.  I have those great parents who are supportive of all my new interests (of which there have been quite a few… piano, photography, woodworking, running… and most of them have stuck).  So when I was in high school they bought me a Canon rebel and classes to learn to use it.  Since then I’ve been kind of obsessed with photography.  I love a good photo, whether it be artistic or just a snapshot that captures that moment in time, I love them all. And since I have a collection of cameras old and new, the office walls were a perfect place to display this collection.

So when Nannan and I were going through her basement and I found some of these old cameras, I just knew I wanted to display them. Some of them are a little worse for the wear, but I love that they show how much they have been loved over the years.

The black box behind this camera is actually an old lunchbox that reminds me of ones construction workers used to take to work.  The larger prints are photos that an old relative of mine took.  The woman in the photo below is my great great great grandmother. Doesn’t she look like she is out of an old black and white movie?

But you’ll notice, not all the cameras above are as old as others.  And that leads me to one of my favorite stories and one of my favorite people.  I had a professor in college who had also taught both my brothers and my mother when they were at the same university.  He and my mother had struck up a friendship and kept in touch off and on over the few years with the occasional Christmas card or update letter.  He’s definitely a quirky professor and an excellent teacher (although his favorite line at the beginning of every semester is to say: I feel like when I’m grading students I am really grading the teaching… and I am an A teacher!)

Vic believes very much in the supernatural and the meaning of dreams, etc.  And so one day my twin brother and I had gone to his house to visit and he said: “my wife (who had been deceased for several years) came to me last night and told me I should give you all of her cameras.”  She had been an artist and worked with a lot of photography medium.  Of course I told Vic: no no I couldn’t possibly take her things! But he said he had been trying to figure out what to do with all of it, and since she had told him so, he couldn’t possibly go against her wishes.  And thus I became in possession of all of her cameras and lenses and photography books.  I never look at these shelves in the office without thinking of Vic and his wife, and the generosity he showed me.

Also on this shelf is a little mug that my aunt found me.  Since I work for the family company, and am one of the only female grandkids that lives close to my family, I regularly get delegated to be the errand girl. (In my family, we are run by the women… my mother and her three sisters and mother are all wonderful, formidable women… and together… whoa) So my aunt found this little winged roller skate and it reminded her of me and my willingness to be the little winged errand girl. I love that she thought of me and have kept this here with some of my other treasures.

And finally tucked on the tallest shelf, is a cute little picture of my grandmother circa 1922.  I think she looks cute peeking out around all the cameras.