If you know me at all, I love a good find, and one that has meaning.
The other day I was on the hunt for some decorating materials (making chalk boards for the kids!) and headed out to a yard sale to look for some old frames to paint. While on the hunt, I came to an older home, quickly got out of the car expecting to get right back in after scanning the area of old tools, nails, and fishing equipment. Not really the sale for me, and I almost passed up a great find. I decided to look in the garage and spotted an old camera. I picked it up thinking about the time period it had been through. The memories it had captured and the people who had been in front of it. An older gentleman approached me telling me it was his. He went into a story about at one time how he loved photography and the art of it, how now it was just sitting in his garage taking up space and gathering dust. After telling him, that I was a photographer in the area, he told me to wait as he wanted to show me something. He slowly made his way to his home while I chatted with his daughters who were running the sale. They told me that he was 87.
The gentleman came slowly back carrying an old pinhole camera. “It’s yours, ” he told me. “To capture more great things with.”
I was moved and honored that a stranger would trust me with two items that had great meaning to him and now to me. When I arrived home, I placed them on my shelf with the camera my late grandfather had photographed with. I’m not sure if I will ever figure out the art and how to use these antique camera’s, but at least I know the meaning and some of the stories behind them.
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From left to right; Pinhole camera, Brownie camera (my grandfather’s) Kodak Instamatic, Nikon N90, my first film camera I shot weddings with.
Happy Friday to you!