jimsjournal
Say Cheese -- 02/29/04

This entry is answering the questions in this week's Sunday Brunch:

1. What type(s) of camera do you have?
My favorite camera is a 35mm SLR, a Konica Autoreflex TC I've had since around 1978. It's been battered a bit and could use a good professional cleaning, I suppose -- but it is still a fine, dependable camera. I usually use it with the Konica 50mm F1.7 lens it came with, but I sometimes replace that with a Soligor 80mm - 200mm zoom lens.

I also have an Olympus D-380 digital camera. It did a wonderful job at first, but for months its color balance has been off. At first this was just with daylight pictures and flash pictures were fine, but now some flash shots are also showing a definite skew in color balance. Probably got bumped or dropped one time too many. I would like to replace it, but with two kids in college I'm trying to keep a lid on discretionary purchases.

I am also rather fond of those single use cameras -- stick them in a pocket and don't worry about them.

2. Do you store your pictures in a box, photo album or on your computer?
Yes.

Well, all of the above and more. Older pictures are in albums or in envelopes or in envelopes in boxes. Some are framed and hanging on walls or sitting on shelves and tables. A few digital pictures have been printed, but mostly they are on computers (and copied onto CDs).

3. What is your favorite thing to take pictures of?
Just about anything. Well, since this past July I would say that my grandson is my favorite photographic subject. Other than that, mostly family pictures -- birthdays, holidays, or no special occasion at all -- and pictures of our cat at any time -- and I like to take pictures of places where I have traveled.

I have always been fascinated by photography since early childhood. I went on a bit of a photography binge in the mid-sixties when I had a pretty decent camera and could not begin to count the number of black and white studies I did of sunlight, shadow and texture at some construction projects on the SUNY/New Paltz campus. (I was also very involved in 8mm cinematography during that same time frame -- if only digital video had existed then! -- especially available light. My brother and I would ride around in his tiny Triumph Spitfire and shot endless black and white footage of driving at night and color footage of the early pre-dawn and of sunrise.)

4. What is the biggest size photo you have hanging in your home?
Hmmm, without measuring it (it's upstairs), it is a family picture (professional studio) that is about 15 or 16 inches wide and maybe 10 or 12 high. Then there are a bunch of eight by tens (the one the wall closest to me is of Adam and me taken when I was around the age that he is now) all over the house and dozens of smaller ones. Here in my den (which is dominated by museum prints and posters) there are almost four dozen photographs displayed (although that is counting two of those frames that hold multiple photographs.

5. Do you like having your picture taken?
It doesn't bother me -- I don't try to hide or scream "no" the way some people do. (I do admit to hating the picture in my high school yearbook.)



Four years ago -- my February 29th entry was "Leap Day"



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