Bringing Vintage Into the Future

On Memorial Day my family and I drove into Pasadena, California. We walked around, had lunch, picked up an ice cream and spent the day smiling. While we were eating lunch, my youngest daughter brought up the subject of cameras. She explained how she really wanted to get a film camera, but she didn't want to buy an original Olympus or Nikon because it's old, used and may not work as well. As she spoke, and I ate my salad, a bright light bulb went off in my head and fluttered over my dark, slightly gray, but still dark and handsome head of hair. I could immediately see my old 1978 Canon A-E1 film camera sitting on a shelf in our garage. I told her about it, and with a little hesitance and skepticism, she agreed to look at it when we got home.

To my surprise, the minute my key unlocked the front door, she asked me about my camera. I laughed, put my keys down and disappeared into the garage to try and find my newly important possession. A few minutes later, I came back in the kitchen holding my camera, along with two extra lenses. My daughter's eyes widened and a smile broke out on her face. She was in awe. I set everything down, took them out of their very dusty cases, and laid out the materials on the kitchen counter. After about 20 minutes of investigating, we realized we needed new batteries. My daughter and I hopped into my turbo beetle and hightailed it to Rite Aid(we didn't actually high tale it to Rite Aid, we drove very carefully and leisurely. It was Memorial Day, there was not traffic!) We traveled through the aisles, found the batteries we needed and the 35 mm color film that was necessary to actually use the camera. We grabbed the last 35 mm color film, so if that doesn't show you that it was meant to be, I don't know what will!

My daughter and I pulled into the garage, hopped out, went inside and spent the next half an hour fiddling with the settings, the batteries and the film. Finally, we got it to work and she took her first ever picture using a film camera. It was of me laughing. I can already tell she's going to be a great photographer.

My point in sharing this story is not to share a bonding moment I had with my daughter, or show that I had a great Memorial Day weekend. Those memories will be engrained in my brain forever, and I will look back on our 2016 Memorial Day film camera adventure fondly. My point in sharing this story was to show that the past can always be brought into the present. I kept my Canon film camera because I realized that it was an important asset to me. My daughter said to me, "I can't believe that you kept this! You always throw everything out." My response was "I never throw out the good things." I kept my camera thinking that maybe one day I would use it. I thought this is something special, why would I get rid of it? I was able to pass on what was left of my record collection to my daughter, and now I have something else to pass on to her as well. It's a great feeling to be able to give your daughter something that you were passionate about, and know that she's passionate about it as well. Now, when I think about my 1978 Canon film camera, I won't think about when I received it or when I used it, but when I was able to give it to my daughter, so she could use it for her own creativity.

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