Hey Reg, it appears the camera batteries have died. By the time one has finished charging, the other (despite coming off the charger hours ago) is now flat. I can't win, they've properly given up the ghost.
It's not surprising, I guess. I bought the Canon 40D (and batteries and lenses) from you back in 2012, and I think you'd already owned and used the whole setup for a few years prior. To find that date I had to go back into my old spending records and was able to even confirm I paid you $1300 for it. I don't know why, but I correctly remembered that price all these years later. Apparently a similar setup, minus the lenses, now goes for about $150 if you're lucky. Like you mentioned, though, the glass still holds the real value.
The question is why you decided to sell me the camera in the first place. I remember you saying that your arms and wrists just couldn't take the weight any more. I think you first asked for $2000 from me, and the best I could do as a poor student was $1300. You agreed for some reason that escapes me; you knew other people in the local photography community that you could've unloaded it to for a better price. I also knew you weren't rolling in the cash at the time, and were having a hell of a time keeping that Mistubishi van of yours on the road.
Either way, you ended up selling it to me. I made three payments of $500, $400, and $400 over two months. Probably once per paycheck. You used the money to buy a little Leica, if memory serves.
I hate to admit it, but I haven't used the camera in years. I think it was last for a trip to Nova Scotia in 2018. I never really developed a 'specialty' or 'style' of photography, mostly just taking shots of opportunity where I find them. Most are unremarkable, I'm sure, but what I liked is how carrying that bulky camera bag around forced me to look at the world in a different way. To continually scan for the beauty. I never really captured it effectively, but I kept trying.
It's been difficult to lately to get back up on that horse. Over the last three or so years, doing creative tasks seems like more of a sisyphusian task. I push, push, push, and when I take a step back to look at my progress, I'm instantaneously further down the slope than where I started. I'm even having a hard time sketching. My drive seems to be withering away. After dominating so much of my life, like how I was back in 2012, it feels like I'm walking around with an empty room in my soul. Maybe there's a single picture on the wall of the young man you knew me as.
That could be why you sold the 40D to me at such a discount; you saw my drive to create just for the sake of it. Skill and reception be damned.
Do you remember our autumn drive in 2014? You loaded a coworker and I up into your van, and you took us of a tour to the south west of the city to 'appreciate the fall colours'. Man, what tall order for Alberta; that's not something it ever really excelled at. But you found us a remote dirt road in the fog, a waterfall, lonely fields, and yes, even patches of colour. You didn't take any photos yourself, but I think that trip was a bit of a passing of the torch. Or maybe you just wanted to make sure your camera went to capable hands. Hopefully it did.
But how do you explain the record player? How on earth did I end up with that? And the shells your father brought back from the Second World War. I moved a couple years ago, but I still found a place for those to be on display. As for the large format printer, well, I did my damnedest to get it to work but everything came out looking a bit green. I blew through a lot of the (rather expensive) toner reserves trying to clean and calibrate the thing, too. That might be a lost cause in my hands, so I'm considering passing it on down the line. I hope you don't hold it against me.
I'm not sure what I did to deserve some of those gifts, and I wish I could've asked why. I helped you buy and setup a new mattress once, was that it? You knew your time was coming and made sure to move your precious possessions went to people who would appreciate it. I imagine that must've been a bittersweet process. I hope I'll do the same some day, and be able to give new lives to the things I'd loved.
Anyways, this weekend I made plans with my wife to go for a day trip around Southern Alberta, much like we did those years ago. The camera tickled the back of my brain from its place on the shelf. "Yeah, but it's heavy," I told myself, "and it's not charged, and the memory cards are full of who knows what, I'll need to process whatever shots I take, and my new phone probably shoots better anyways."
But I figured I'd take out your camera anyways for this trip. Maybe because the weight and bulk and single purpose imbues a sense of responsibility. If you're lugging something like that around, you better use it. Until the batteries give out for good, at least. It was a rude awakening to realize that they were done, and how long it'd been since I last used the camera, and how long it'd been since we shared brunch at a Denny's together. It kinda makes me feel bad, like I haven't kept my end of the deal on the purchase.
I ended up bringing my smartphone and took some 'images', as you used to call them. Despite the superior technological quality, none of them really turned out well. Flawed from the get-go, I think, because I wasn't moving through and observing the world with the same intent that the big 40D bastard demands. It was a good day out nonetheless, and at one point I stopped in at a small town apothecary and picked out an old vinyl record to bring home. The player, you'll be happy to hear, is still operating just fine.
There are some new batteries available online, two for $27. I'm hesitant to buy them, because if I do, that means I'll have to use the camera and confront my lack of creativity. Maybe that's all the more reason to do it.
I miss you, Reg. I hope things are going well on the other side of wherever you are.
And I got ahold of your old license plate from the Kia. The plan is to hang it up in the garage once I get the insulation and drywall done.
-Cril
Glenn Miller - Rhapsody in Blue
