CAMERA

I remember Mom’s little box camera – a Brownie.  This little gem always enthralled me, and I always wondered whoever could invent such a miracle.  Some of my best memories of my childhood, were of me looking at all the black and white photos in the bottom drawer of her wardrobe!  Sometimes she would sit with me, and explain who the people were -  I could actually remember the names of some of them : Daphne was her good friend who passed away years later.  Then there were other friends of hers.  She used to tell me how much fun they all had going out in a group. Mom and her sister Babsie were good friends and always went out together.  They also worked at the same places, and the London Fur Company was often mentioned.  Little Linnie fantasised about these “friends”, and I tried to image myself being there sharing in their laughter and fun!  I still nostalgically wonder what happened to these photos.

The enchantment of the camera, brings to mind another occasion in my life.  I was always very fond of painting and colouring-in pictures.  There was a competition somewhere, and colouring in a picture of yachts on a lake, was the challenge. The first prize was a cine camera, and the second prize was a bicycle!  I dreamed of this bicycle and envisioned myself riding of the Ralleigh with white mudguards!  Every effort was put into the colouring of the picture.  I decided that I wouldn’t do the conventional colouring with pencils – I used Dad’s oil paints and dabbed the colours onto the paper like some great professional artist!  My aim was to win the “bike”!  The entry was mailed and Mom advised that I should forget about it  -  I’m sure she didn’t want me to be too disappointed.  About a month later, the postman came to the door and delivered a telegram in an orange envelope.  Yes, those days we had real telegrams delivered to us!  “Congratulations! You have won 1^st Prize!”  Imagine how excited I was – we all jumped up and down with joy.  This Cine Camera brought me much joy and every moving thing was photographed. Many years later I bought my first brand new bike when I started working and paid a whole R55 for it!

Cameras evolved from the old fashioned ones which used films to be developed at a great cost – which we could ill afford.  Later on, some places developed the films, and they provided a boo-boo box!  These rejects didn’t have to be paid for, and in the beginning my boo-boo’s were more than the good ones!

The era of the digital camera came into being.  Louise’s good friend, Marie had a magical camera – this little gadget took pictures and one didn’t have to develop the photos!  My little brain couldn’t fathom the intricacies of this miracle, and we had such fun taking pictures, and deleting the rejects … at absolutely no expense whatever!  Laughter and pulling of faces and just having nonsense lasted many enjoyable hours!  Thanks to Marie’s little miracle!

I still have the feeling that my camera is still one of my most precious possessions,  I can understand

that artists see things and just know that they need to be painted.  I see them and realise that they are calling to be photographed!  These days our cell phones take the place of the good old faithful cameras – the reason being that we always have them with us at all times.  But, my real camera still gets dusted off periodically when we go on a holiday trip to beautiful places which just yearn to be photographed!

Linnie

14 May 2O15