Was i there?

A few weeks ago I was watching Four Christmases. There is a scene where the family is going through the photo album and showing pix of her childhood. I've spent many minutes thinking about that scene in the time since seeing the movie. I don't have any pictures of my childhood. No baby pictures, no shots of early birthdays with cake smeared on my face, no pictures of little munkey bundled in snow clothes to braves the slopes of the front yard with a sled in the frigid winter.

No high school prom photos. I didn't go to prom, but that's a whole different story. Even if I had, I wouldn't have the pictures. The earliest photo I have is probably me as a junior in college. A few shots of friends from that time that were given to me. I didn't actually have a camera. I had one for a short while one semester in college because I took a photography class. I didn't take very good technical photos then but the creativity was definitely there. I miss the darkroom and printing my own work.

Getting a digital camera was a huge boon to me. In the last few years, I've accumulated more than 8000 photos in my library. Snap away, it's free. I've traveled far and wide and still have very few photos of myself. I hate seeing myself in pictures. I'm not so concerned I don't have photos of my childhood. I just think it's odd. Most people have baby pix of themselves (at least I think they do).

It's sad to see the demise of the film camera. There is something special about advancing the film wheel manually. The slow whirring grind as the gears inside the camera engage the holes in the sides of the film. The long rewinding of the film into the roll at the end of shooting. The satisfying thunk as it hits the bottom of the film canister. Maybe it's time to get the old manual camera out and into action. Is it self portrait time? Hmmm...