Accepting camera constancy / comfort zone ...

[dee]

Nearing 70 , being out of phase with everything [ disassociation and derealisation ] and guy/girl/me glitches and finding some tentative reality / sameness / safety / constancy in cameras I have been concerned that the idea of camera , probably created by those magic slice shows as a bewildered , what I now know as transgendered child , supersedes the actual taking of snapshots , let alone photography .

In a relatively short time all the confusion and absolute discomfort with real people [ hence cars and architecture rather than people , with the exception of the grand daughters ] will all be over .

I know that I have been hiding behind a camera so that others stop trying to make me join in / integrate . Rolls of undeveloped film rather prove this situation .
i tend to focus on cars/buses/achtecture as people confuse me [ though I am pleased with snapshots of our grandchildren ]

My many film cameras ground me somewhat . Any object remains intangible somehow - input is fine , but processing is glitched .
I love sameness is several SRTS , several Kiev/Contaxes and Leica likes - input seems to be reinforced by several .
The Kievs and Contax /Kiev hybrids are especially amazing with continuity from 1937 Contax III , with 1957 Kiev 4 controls and meter , to a final Kiev 4m of 1980

Each digital camera is of it's time and displays a similar continuity and constancy .
Cameras, by handling , seem to create muscle memory which is far more real than visual - each photo stimulates some fragmented memories , now captured on the computer .

It works in other areas - cars are an escape for me , and it's all too frequent that previous car ambience / controls etc overlay the present .

It's off topic , because it's a tentative reason for a camera which is not simply a tool to create photographs , nor is it about photography
This did not seem 'right' to me , but I guess that it is what it is.

i guess its OK just to go with it now .

I wonder is there are other odd reasons for a camera ?

Thanks

dee

 

[radi(c)al_cam]

Your reasons aren't odd at all.

Certainly, in the western world «hiding» behind a camera is quite an adequate way to cope with one's «social anxiety» in many situations.

I remember that most of my school mates who started photographing in their teenage years had some sort of «disorder» of the aforementioned type, or another.

As a non-professional my conclusion is that taking photographs can and should be a relief; and I'm convinced that (in my case, at least) the «easier» or better: «determinated solely by myself» the handling of the tool, the better and easier the «distance-contact with reality», so to speak.

In other words: To have control over these four elementary factors — film speed, shutter speed, aperture, and focus — that's a lot more control one can have than in most other real life circumstances, isn't it?

 

[dee]

Thanks Alexander .
I had not considered the control over shutter speed / aperture etc , but it seems to be a factor - as is driving .
it's just that most see a camera as a tool , whereas I seem to see each as something more .
dee