So, you can’t go home again…or maybe you can?

[TwoWheeler]

I recently had the bit of cerebral flatulence that I ought to try and recreate what I believe to be my first photo.

In 1979, I bought my first camera - a Yashica FX3. I immediately went to a nearby county park and took an image of a waterfall. () I took the film in for processing and anxiously awaited the return of my pictures… When they came back, they were flat, mushy and boring.

Yesterday I went to the same park to try and take the same shot again - this time with an R5 and a 50mm lens (which I believe to be the focal length I used for the original one). I was working from memory (although the original picture may still be hanging on my ex-wife’s wall….).

Everything was so overgrown, it was impossible to get the original angle - or even anything approximating the original shot, so I left empty handed.

So, no, I couldn’t recreate that shot I took 46 years ago…but on the other hand the end result in both cases was disappointment, so maybe I did sort of recreate something of the original experience.

 

[Bryan Conner]

I suffer from cerebral flatulence nearly on a daily basis....haha....love your term for it. It sounds like you were indeed successful in recreating the original experience. I can't remember my first picture taken with my first camera. At least your first picture was more memorable than mine.

 

[TwoWheeler]

I suffer from cerebral flatulence nearly on a daily basis....haha....love your term for it.

“cerebral flatulence”, “just for excrement and hilarity” or “defecate or vacate the commode” are funnier than “brain fart”, “sh*ts and giggles” or “sh*t or get off the pot” and internet friendly.

At least your first picture was more memorable than mine.

…but for the wrong reason! My disappointment with film is why I gave up photography for a long time. So, today, when I hear people saying how new photographers should start with film, my response is “bovine excrement!” (There’s another one…)

Of all the film I wasted over a period of about five years, there were only a couple that I was happy with and one of those was accidental- a sunset on a lake with two people in a canoe in the foreground and because I exposed for the sunset, they were in silhouette.

It wasn’t until my first digital “point and wait” that I started to get the bug again - instant feedback and it didn’t cost me anything to take chances. (Even if you had to wait a couple eternities for it to chew through the data so you could take another shot).