Is there a Shangri-la for electronic equipment? A paradise where my elementary school tape player is no longer forced to suffer through endless bouts of Roxette's It Must Have Been Love, and my dorm room coffee maker is finally clean? If so, I hope someone is saving a picturesque little corner for my camera, because it deserves a nice rest. My camera is dying. It's been pretty beat up for a while now, and for ages I've lived with the fact that the lens cap doesn't want to stay on. But lately things have gotten serious. Now when I turn the camera on, it immediately takes it upon itself to turn off. The battery chamber refuses to stay closed. I think it's hopeless.
I don't exactly see a new camera on the horizon, at least not the one I really want. The truth is, I had outgrown the old camera. I kept asking it to do things it really wasn't capable of, like being in focus without using the flash. But I knew its strengths and, in a way, I think any style I have as a photographer has been a result of this camera's limitations. With other media (painting in particular) it is easy to blame myself when the result doesn't turn out looking like it did in my head, but with this slightly inadequate camera, I could always blame the camera. It sort of freed me up to make mistakes and try things because I wasn't taking the failures personally.
I have a few pictures waiting in the wings for this blog, taken before the camera's swan song, but soon enough those will run out. I hope you'll bear with me.
And Santa, if you're reading, I've (mostly) been very good this year...
