I’m coming round…

…to the idea that my fabulous old Pentax camera may be a tool of the past. It’d saddens me to even write that, but I have to face facts. I’ve hung on to the past for too long perhaps, but with the camera comes loads of memories – right back to the start when I bought it. Raking around the wee old camera shop in Morningside (which has now moved up the road and turned itself into a brighter and cleaner shop, much to my disappointment) to find exactly what I wanted – a fully manual, nothing fancy solid camera. In fact, my only issue at the time if I remember was would I buy it immediately with the only money I had – that month’s rent – or take a chance and hope it would still be there when I managed to stop going to the pub and get some money together? (Why as students could we afford the pub so often – ahhhh, those days are long gone…) I think I considered the options for about 30 seconds, before handing over my money and leaving with a smile on my face.

But I digress…

I’m running an Elective period for seniors this year and I’ve decided to run photography as the first block of work. It’s such a joy to get out and about with the students, doing work that will ultimately be non-assessable. No pressure or deadlines from the SQA, just pure enjoyment of learning for enjoyment’s sake. Cor, if only all education could be that way. It takes me back to the good old days of Scotvec Modules. I ran darkroom photography then and it always amazed me how some pupils who had no grasp of numeracy and little interest in many of their other subjects, could quote percentages of chemical mixtures and get their darkroom techniques down to a fine art so easily. The buzz of seeing a student’s face light up with excitement, never mind listening to the squeals of delight when they saw their image start to develop is something I’ve never forgotten – and something I’ve not often seen since.

So, I’ve taken the bulls by the horn and started to take photos again with the students, but this time using my other half’s camera. I still don’t like the fact there’s so many auto settings and the manual function confuses me somewhat, but the feeling of cheating is starting to fade. Manipulating on photoshop again feels like I’m cheating on a test, but I guess that’ll pass too.

So, we’ll see how things progress. Looks like my unused darkroom in the loft will stay that way. It was a great idea, but in practice didn’t work out. It’ll certainly be cheaper to pursue now, but will it be as much fun? Who knows, but I’ll give it a try.

~ by zoewalker on September 28, 2009.