(Album#1)

My first camera was a fake camera. You would insert these plastic discs and there was a sponge you had to get wet with water and you’d push a pretend button and somehow the water would interact with something on the disc and an image would appear and you think you had taken a photo but it would be something general like a portrait of 2 people. I really loved that fucking camera.

And then, then I had a disc camera and it was plastic similar to the viewfinder and what are those called and the film stock was also in the form of a disc. I would take pictures on whale watching trips or camping on the beach with my family and I took pictures of my sister in her bathing suit in a tent and at the Jesus camp I went to where the kids didn’t listen to real music but I discovered a pet boys shop tape there once.

And then I had, I don’t even know when I even used it. Some crappy point and shoot and then I used a proper 35mm camera. I would borrow my mom’s for my photography class in high school and then I had another 35mm camera I got at a thrift store and I moved into my phase of taking quote unquote artistic photos. Well that didn’t go anywhere.

And then when I was a projectionist I would take pictures of the movies on the screen with an automatic camera. I don’t know it was silver.

And then I decided to get artistic again and I got a polaroid land camera and it was somewhat defected so all the pictures were somewhat overexposed and I would do polaroid transfers. There’s only two that I remember doing: one was in my uncle’s garden and the other was of the swimming pool in the mobile home park where my mom lives.

And then I spent ninety bucks in the year 2000 on some stupid point n shoot because I was going to Europe and I still have film now in 2009 from that camera, about four rolls that I have not developed. I’m waiting till I have some money to burn on stuff like that.

Then I just used disposable cameras for a while. Those are never good.

And now I have a crappy digital camera I’ve already broken twice and it takes miserable photos.

So I used a fancy digital camera once and you could adjust the shutter speed and it could take beautiful night photos and now I am in camera limbo.

By the way I got my camera in my bag and lemme see it’s got 200 and 82 pictures on it.

I’m not gonna print that shit. I’m gonna put it on my computer which is also pretty archaic and I’m sure it’s gonna die someday and I’ll lose it all.

 
(Album#2)

So I didn’t get a camera when everyone else around me was getting a camera because they seemed or it seemed like an object I would treat as disposable. But when my friend was moving and wanted to unload some of his stuff to make money I bought his camera. I think I paid him a hundred bucks. I didn’t check on the year. Cybershot. Maybe 2002. I hadn’t even had a camera or operated a camera since high school so it was really exciting to just snap snap snap. I didn’t realize how much I wanted a camera until I got that. It felt like I didn’t have to accumulate as much because I could go around taking pictures of things. Things I would have wanted to buy or lusted after I became a consumer of in a new kind of experience. The thing about the camera was it was tiny. Maybe an inch by 2 and-a-half inches by another inch. Really sat in the palm of my hand. The viewfinder, the viewing screen, is that what you call it, was, god, the size of a postage stamp. I figured out pretty quickly it didn’t take good pictures in low light. It had a crappy flash. The flash would cast an uneven glow sometimes so the whole picture was shaded in blue or in magenta, like a glitch in the camera. So I ended up taking all those early pictures in broad daylight, very flat, almost graphic, like graphic design. This little device, was all it could handle. But it was also kind of charming. Everything was soft; there was only a few megapixels so it was kind. Colors and shapes became very important.

And I don’t remember what camera came next. I had a whole slew of cameras after that. I probably got a new one as a gift, a basic one, you know, sony or panasonic. something like that. I think I had three like that.

Wait. I had a fifth camera. I totally forgot about this. This is funny. It had a video on it but it also took stills. I used it once or twice and I have no idea where it is. The pictures are on various computers or just gone or on CDs. Somewhere I think I’ve printed out pictures to send to people as gifts. A couple of times to family. Whoever found this camera had a laugh. The first thing on it was a video of an old African woman in her maybe 70s playing drums and singing in Union Square. It was right when we invaded Iraq in 2003. So I didn’t take any pictures of the rally. But there was this woman singing a peace song and I shot the people gathering around her for ten minutes. The next thing on the camera were these photos of my then boyfriend. We shaved his beard and maybe his head too and there was this big pile of red curls. And I took a picture of the pile of hairs on his crotch with his little tip of his penis coming out. And there’s something else that might be disturbing for the person who found it. We were fucking each other with umbrellas in the ass. No faces with the umbrellas though. None. Clean.

And after that I wanted a better camera. I wanted to be able to take better pictures. So I think I bought one, I lost it, I think someone gave me one, I lost it, you know. The one I still have is from the duty free shop. My mom bought it for me even though I insisted I always lose them but she got it for me anyway because it had no tax. A panasonic lumix some number. My first time using it I was amazed. I was snapping pictures left and right. Not with the flash. Never used the flash. But it was a step up in terms of quality, because of the year maybe, cameras had gotten better for the money or maybe it was a bit more expensive. I was especially impressed with how it balanced color.

I realized the crap I had been using. How distorted my old camera was. But the funny thing is that now I just want that cybershot back. Why is it so attractive to me? I like the one I have now at least when I am taking pictures of people in daylight. And I think I have all these functions on the camera that I never use. Just the auto. I guess what I do have is the no shake thing.

There aren’t that many more. I got a manual for my high school graduation. Never mind. It wasn’t manual, it was automatic. I asked for it. My dad gave it to me unwrapped out of his front shirt pocket and it dropped on the ground and it broke and he said something like what did you do that for. I didn’t even get to touch it. Then I was crying in my gown. I had a red wet face for every photo people took of me.