Goodbye, Old Friend

Last night I killed a part of me: I buried my Nikon F2 camera system.

I then threw into the trash five new cans of Kodak film. It was sad to see it all go.

Despite having two photo books published (1975 and 1984), and decades of experience as a professional commercial photographer, an era has officially ended. I hoped for some use for the dozens of rare Nikkor lenses, scientific bellows, special finders, focusing screens, esoteric filters and other accessories I'd collected during four decades, but alas... I couldn't even recall when I'd purchased those rolls of Kodak film.

I hadn't used the camera for perhaps five years. Film cost, processing cost, slide costs, print costs, archival page cost, scanning costs... in the end, all proved to be unnecessary.

To be sure, I'm still shooting photographs. My most recent, "Perseverance," won an award and is slated to be published soon. But I shoot digital for all my advertising and publishing work.

My latest Sony S70 with Zeiss-licensed optics has accounted for nearly 50,000 photographs. I'm hoping to buy the Leica D-LUX or Leica M8 digital camera soon, although I must admit I'm deeply smitten with the beauty and functionality of the Leica M7 or MP rangefinders... which models still use film, however.

So I guess my memories come full circle. I can recall the pure pleasure shooting all over Japan with my Leica IIIf (shown below)-- as flawless and indestructable a machine as man ever made. I recall making a living photographing stage and movie sets with my whisper-quiet Leica M3, and recall how I shot virtually all my children's pictures with my Nikon F2 system. But it's all a bygone era.

What matters is not which machine I used, but the fact that I used it at all. I am grateful that my life story is now copiously preserved in many tens of thousands of photographs. Deep nostalgia extends an hundredfold to life depicted in their rectangular frame, but I always will remember the feeling of a fine machine in my hands... and the sound of the tight "snick" of a finely attuned shutter.

Goodbye, old friend. I will not forget your uncommon service. I also will not forget the hands that made you.

May mankind seen through future lenses be as skilled as the hands that made your parts from raw ore and sand.