SAYING GOODBYE TO OLD FRIENDS

The love affair between me and my photography equipment is over and it is time to move on. That's just the way life - and technology - is.

I think I was about 10 when my mother bought me my first camera. It was an Argus C3 and it lasted a long time. Of course it was a simple "point and shoot" and I was happy being a "point and shoot" kind of a girl. My first photos, still in my scrapbook, are various shots taken on the old Catalina Island steamer that took our Girl Scout troop between Long Beach and Catalina in the mid-1940s.

That camera lasted until I married in 1955 and along with a husband came his camera, a step up from mine. By the time that marriage was over in 1971 I had moved up to a simple Canon. I didn't know about a single lens reflex yet. After Jer and I married in 1975 I took a short photography course that brought the Canon AE1 into my life and caused me to switch from film to slides. That AE1 went to the middle east with us in 1980 and to England in 1985. It was a wonderful work horse and eventually served as my back-up camera, in which I kept very high-speed film for certain shots I wanted. Jerry acquired a Canon Autofocus for himself.

My last camera, the Canon T90 shown above was specifically purchased for use in our Turkey jaunt in the early 1990s. Technologically it didn't do much more than the AE1 did, but ergonomically it was a stunner. It felt like it was a natural part of my hand - not that comfort is all that important in photography but since I pretty much had it in my right hand for two years, it was good that it felt at home there.

Once we retired in 2000 and stopped traveling, the camera hasn't been used much. I know I used it once in this apartment where we live now, but that film is still in the camera.

My cousin Shirlee purchased a new digital camera for herself after she moved to North Carolina and asked me if I'd like her old one. Of course I jumped at the chance -- and that effectively assured the end of all my wonderful old camera equipment.

I am sad to see it go. Many years of my life are invested in those things, but they are useless now and its time to move them on. Where? I don't know. They are simply of no value or use now. Old cameras like mine don't move on e-Bay and probably yard-sale cameras don't either. The idea of taking my T90 down to the recycling place in Corona is abhorrent, but that may be where they have to go. If they aren't wanted there, then it's the dumpster for sure!

There are three more big decisions to be made once the camera equipment is in the past. The first is getting rid of the slide projector, screen, and some peripheral equipment used with slides. The second is ditching the old hardback Sampsonite luggage pieces that we will never, ever use again. And third is letting loose of several hundred audio cassette tapes that we accumulated over the years and that Jerry is quite attached to, even though they never get listened to anymore.

But just think...as soon as all this is gone, I'll be able to put my shoes on the closet floor again. I haven't seen that floor in a long, long time.