What do you call a person who has one clear focus, a group into which they fit seamlessly, a niche?
I've been affixing their particular affiliation to the word "geek": theater geek, band geek. Yesterday, looking at Laura and--he needs a ridiculous name for all his ridiculous shiny technology--Braxton, I realized that they were 'camera geeks'. As we were supposed to be designing folio tabs they were shopping for new equipment online. Katherine said, "Laura, how many cameras do you have?" and Laura replied, "Twelve, I think...but only eight work. No, maybe seven."
As I watched them drool over lenses and heavy black boxes, a thought occurred to me. "You guys are more interested in what you're looking through than what you're looking at." Braxton looked at me and smiled. "Yeah, pretty much."
I'm not like that. I like fiddling with exposure, color saturation, et al. once the pictures are on my computer--and I like changing the white balance, f-stop, shutter speed, and the rest when I use my father's behemoth Sony.
But photography for me is not about technology, just time. "By slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt." Black Swan Green. I love, more than anything, capturing a moment. "Hey, it's mile-marker 16! I'm about to turn sixteen! Mum, take a supremely unflattering picture of me with my upcoming age!"
Okay, so it didn't go down exactly like that, but--you see? Pictures are magic because they are solid, they happened.
Braxton is a talented photographer because he knows how to photograph reality and make it look unreal, prettier than real life. And it's a useful skill, but no fun. I want this: my dirty Converse and mismatched socks, braid damp with river water, bike shorts under gym shorts, bathing suit making my back look deformed. It's magic because it happened.
So I'm not a camera geek. Obsessive Collector of Memories, more like.
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