Photography. drawing with light.
I'm not sure when it happened really - I can remember being drawn to photography at an early age, but my repeated requests for a camera were met with "it's too expensive to develop all that film!"
Eventually, after persistent requests I was given an old 35mm Kodak camera that had belonged to my mother back in the dark ages, well the sixties anyway. I remember taking literally thousands of what today would be considered photographic masterpieces, however given that the parental stance on the price of film development did not alter with me owning a camera, those captured photons had nothing to sink their little photonic teeth into except the black plastic at the rear of the camera. I was possibly eleven at this time.
So without film, clicking the camera became less and less interesting until such time as the little silver and black device was relegated to the bottom of the toy box, by now filling with better things like old People magazines and comic books not featuring cartoon ghosts. And of course i had my guitar.
Accelerate forward a few years, and you'll find me smokin' dope, living with mates from back in the day and giggling my way through wah wah driven saxophone breaks. did I mention i played a bit of saxophone too? A very small bit. My uncle used to quip that I could play the opening bars of baker street better than Gerry Rafferty. who of course never played the sax in his life. Anyway, this puts us at about AD2000 give or take a hazy month. Hard to believe it was seven years ago. Hard to believe that's all it was. So one day, my dad decides to give me his camera. I can't remember why - something to with him not using it, so here you go why don't you see what you can do?
Backtrack for a moment - 1982 - Olinda Golf course. One of the rare occasions I went out to the course with Dad, but this was a special day. A mate of his had been overseas and had obtained at what must have been a great price, a brand new camera. This was (it turned out later) an Olympus OM2. Silver, with two lenses and flash. You needed a whole bag to carry all the stuff. Can you imagine? A whole bag to carry one camera! This was serious stuff.
Was that it? Was seeing that beautiful machine that day the start of my love affair - forced into latency by family fiscal fear? I say yes.
Here's another thing. I don't recall many shots dad took. It wasn't many I'm sure. A few of mum's horses - of my sister jumping horses (read that however you like) of our dog, etc etc. But that was it. Nothing intimate. No portrait shots of me, of mum, of the sister... and right now, writing this, it seems a bit odd. He had the equipment, but never took those shots. Why not? As far it went, that camera only ever surfaced when there was something to photograph - an event. But unlike me dad never saw the joy in drinking and taking photos at the same time, so at most "events" the choice for him must have been an easy one. The idea that photography could be used for something other than documenting family parties was far in the future for young Rhys.
So back to the future. Or at least the more recent past. AD2000, dad gives me the OM2, with lenses and the flash, in the orange bag. He hadn't used the thing in many years - "might not still be working, but here you are, if you wanna try photography, here you go. Take my camera." After explaining some of the controls, it was in my hands. His explanation was less than perfect I'm sad to say, and my first roll was a mess. I was interested in other things - so shelved it for six months. Eventually I picked it up again and this time, it was like a switch being being flicked. I was shit as a guitarist, woeful as a singer, inadequete as an artist, dreadful as a poet and just too lazy to ever be a writer - but I suddenly foudn that perhaps photography was something i could do well. The first rolls were crap, but encouraging enough to perservere. I giggle a bit now to think how little I knew about things photographic. My naive twisting and turning of various knobs taught me nothing except that if you don't know what it's for, you're better off not touching it.
Here though, the Internet was my saviour. "Whatthe hell is an f-stop?" I started wondering one day. Why have different shutter speeds? What does this knob on top do? Given there was no instructions with the camera, this information from the net was invaluable. And now, well now I can't stop taking photos. I was never the sort of guy who held an interest for very long, but this continues to fascinate, intrigue, baffle and confuse me.
I still use the Om2, occasionally and it's my favourite camera of all. I since have bought no less than forty other cameras (we can talk about my consuming problems later) - of all shapes and sizes, but that compact silver luscious SLR will always be the best.
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