I have heard a couple of interviews lately where the photographers were asked what was their first experience with photography, and a couple of them referred to cameras they played with as kids. It is probably a sign of those in my generation that many of us ended up with a 110 film format camera at some point. These were the long, rectangular – somewhat flat cameras where loading film was a press of a button and snapping in this little 110 film cartridge. Other older generations may refer to perhaps a Brownie as their first camera. All of these were pretty cheap – usually bought at a drugstore for about $20.00. It prompted me to do a little digging in my closet for something similar to share.

This particular image I happen to have in a photo album – was from a family vacation ‘out west’ in 1980. I was twelve and armed with one of these 110 cameras. Little did I realize how pictures would become such a large part of my life decades later, or the multitudes of equipment I would eventually come to acquire. It does make me wonder – was the seed planted way back then?

I can’t say I had any real ambitions of being a photographer when I was 12 – it was just something that interested me – and certainly a way to capture moments of a family of 4 plus a dog packed into a Volkwagen Rabbit driving to California from Michigan. I find it interesting in this photo album I have kept all these years that hardly a single image in it is in focus! 🙂 With a fixed focus camera like the little 110 cameras were – I must have had pretty shaky hands. (But check out that classic ‘S’ curve in the composition – ha!) I suppose some Photoshop work could be done on it to clean it up, restore some color, maybe even get some sharpness in it – but for many reasons – I think that would ruin its character.

Although I doubt I will be blowing this shot up to 36×36 to hang on my wall, it does perhaps hold more history and memories, and maybe even hidden inspiration when compared to those that already are there. And that makes me think that perhaps it is not our technically best images that mean the most to us, but those with a connection to a particular place and time.