Remembering Again the Fun of Photography

Sometime after my first photojournalism class at the University of Texas at Arlington, I went out on a limb and bought a "real" camera. I was going through school on scholarships, working two jobs, and raising two kids, and money was hard to come by. For weeks, I debated buying that Nikon F3 High Eyepoint with a f/1.8 50mm lens.

I knew that buying the F3 would stretch the family budget to the limit. But I'd been smitten with photography. And just as certainly as I knew that I would always be a writer, I also knew that I would always make pictures.

I added extra hours to one job to pay for it, but I eventually bought the F3. The camera, built like a battleship and fully manual, became my constant companion. Four decades later, I still shoot with it. (The battery is seemingly inexhaustible.)

I hadn't thought about the F3 for months, until today. I was shooting with the Canon EOS 1D Mark II and the Canon EF 70-200L IS lens at a local skate park this afternoon. Soon after I arrived, one of the boys took a break from skate boarding and pulled a camera out of his bag.

The camera was invitation enough to get acquainted. At 18, he was proud of his Nikon FE2 (circa 1983) complete with a Nikkor 500mm fixed aperture mirror lens (circa 1961) with rear, screw-in filters and fully rotating ring mount. The lens (about the size of a can of soup) and camera together weighed a fraction of what I was carrying. He was shooting Ilford black-and-white film. 

Not long after we began talking photography, his friend joined us with a vintage Canon F-1 (circa 1970) complete a fisheye lens. With all-metal construction, the F-1, like my F3, was as solid as a boulder.

I asked how they became interested in photography. One told me that when he was younger (he's 18 now), he was into photography. Then he gradually stopped making pictures. When his friend (the young man with the FE2) began making pictures, he was inspired to get the camera back out again. And he's been shooting ever since.

We traded stories and ideas, enjoying an afternoon with our cameras. With the promise to share some of the day's pictures, I left the park remembering again that photography isn't about the gear, it's about making pictures with the gear you have.