Story Behind the Picture: "My Favorite Things 2"

1996, phone call placed to my room in England:

Me: "Hello?"

Dad: "Did you take my camera?"

Me: "I'm sorry, I can't hear you: must be a bad connection."

Dad: "I SAID, did you pack MY camera in one of your eight hundred suitcases?"

Me: *crinkling wad of paper in background* "Dad, the static on the line is terrible. I'll call you later!"

That was the semester I studied abroad and, inadvertently, packed my father's 1968 Asahi Pentax in one of my eight hundred suitcases. I held it hostage even upon my return, continually evading the question of its whereabouts until he finally conceded and bought me a near-identical model (1972) for my college graduation. I loved the delicate light meter, the sound of the shutter ticking closed after a particularly long exposure, the weight of it in my hands. I loved that the film would slip unless I aligned it perfectly, a fact that prevented me from rushing though the process of readying my camera to shoot. I loved carrying it with me when I traveled, its weight a reassuring presence of an old friend.

The cameras in this photographs are those belonging to my family: a collection that reminds me of holidays, graduations, first communions, vacations, life. They all adorn a shelf in our living room, and my oldest son loves to sneak off with the plastic Diana camera that once belonged to my uncle.

Me: *calling up the stairs to his room* "Danny, where is the little black camera?"

Danny: "What camera?"

Me: "The one that is missing from the shelf."

Danny: "I can't hear you mom! What did you say?"

I can't help but smile. My father, of course, finds it hilarious.

Story Behind the Picture: Bubbles

This photograph falls into a category I've labeled "Surprised My Neighbors Haven't Called the Police." Why, you ask? It's certainly not due to the subject matter. No, rather, it's due to the efforts that this particular photograph required...

I'll explain: have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with an inspiration, or been unable to sleep because your mind was racing with creativity? I saw this picture in a dream one night, a picture of bubbles drifting across a winter sky, glinting in the sunlight as they traveled past my eyes. I woke the next morning, determined to recreate the lovely image that had been dancing in my head for hours. I waited for nap time because, as much as I adore my children, there is simply no way to concentrate on taking pictures outdoors as one or both of them will, without fail, make a dash for the nearest busy intersection. So the blessed hour of naps arrived and I walked out into our backyard armed with a bubble-blowing pipe and my camera, well aware that, without children, an adult with a bubble pipe and a hot-pink bottle of bubble solution looks a little...loony. The winds that day were, of course, horrendous - by the time I sent a good harvest of bubbles skyward, they were already halfway to New Jersey, long before I could catch them in the lens of my camera. Anyone that has ever seen my backyard, will know it's the size of a postage stamp...running after bubbles traveling at mach 2 is not really possible. The only option left? My shared driveway. The air current seemed to form a nice tunnel - each time, I blew a huge batch of bubbles and then ran like a crazy person underneath them as they flew out to the street, clicking away with my camera pointed skyward. I think I repeated this process about 30 times. Each time I reached the sidewalk, I truly expected a team of orderlies to jump out from behind a tree with a straight jacket. I know my neighbors with whom we share our driveway saw the whole episode - I ran right past the windows of their home office each trip I made.

In the end, despite my ungainly and Herculean efforts to capture at least one usable image (did I mention I was also wearing big snow boots at the time?), I decided a little public humiliation was a small price to pay for recreating my dream in technicolor pixels.