Toy Camera

Hold on to something solid . . .

Photographers often know the second they see something in front of them that if they don’t trip the shutter at that exact moment, all they’ve tried to do with their life will have been a waste, a deception, an outright lie.

I took one frame of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on a modified Holga 120, a toy camera. Just one frame. I could feel the image all the way down to the soles of my feet. It was like a mild electric shock.

In 1960, Diane Arbus, in a letter to a friend, wrote,

“I don’t press the shutter. The image does. And it’s like being gently clobbered.”

Even if you never pick up a camera, meeting someone that makes you feel whole, who lets you be authentic and real, feels the same way, but if you’re lucky enough to capture that person with a camera, you will have unlocked one of the greatest feelings imaginable . . . getting clobbered.

It’s transcendent, and wonderful.

This is one in an ongoing series of images that I use to communicate with a dear friend via custom greeting cards. I supply an assortment of images I’ve created, and she chooses an image that she likes. I then write a short essay based on that image.

We’ve used these cards to learn more about my photographic process, about each other, and about life.