matching tracksuits

It’s impossible to stay in rural South Carolina and not take a few night shots.

816.5 seconds, f/11.0, 10 mm

“Those planes flying over are Delta flights,” my uncle explains. “I’ve flown over my own place countless times. It takes me fifteen minutes to get to the airport from here and two hours to get back.”

63.4 seconds, f/5.6, 10 mm

He is known for his hyperbole.

Looking back over my childhood, I remember family reunions occurring with some regularity. All the aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-aunts, great-uncles, great-grand parents, cousins, and significant others would rent some place or another and come together for an afternoon of horse shoes, fried chicken, gossip and sweet tea.

It’s been years since I’ve been to one. Saturday, the streak was broken.

Most, if not all, of the family reunions I attended were for my father’s side. Saturday, it was Nana’s side’s turn. Because I know Papa’s side of the family better, it was an odd feeling, in a room full of strangers who constitute an extended family.

There was food and there was gospel singing:

“One thing about the W family,” said Papa. “They can sure sing.”

By the entrance there was a table of old photographs, including one of my maternal grandfather with his two brothers (essentially in the left-center of the picture below).

I never met him as he passed away long, long before I was born. I honestly don’t even know very well what he looked like, but Nana informed me that there was an uncle who looked very similar.

Everyone hovered around the picture table, though. They were the only record of many like my grandfather: people who would have loved to have seen how a small family grew into a small army company’s worth of people.

Seeing I had a fair amount of camera equipment (and associating equipment with skill, I suppose), a gentleman approached me to take some pictures of old faded images that he’d like to have copies of.

Of all the pictures snapped Saturday afternoon, these are worth more than all of those combined. These are the ones that somehow truly fulfill the role photographs are supposed to play in people’s lives.

A look at a time so far removed from ours that it might as well be a different world. And truly, it was a different world. Without the instant, worldwide communication, the pre-Twitter, pre-YouTube word was more insular.

Safer? I don’t know. After all, the Cuban Missile Crisis showed how a little Twitter can go a long way — or at least a direct line of communication between mutually powerful countries.

Bottom line, there was less — of everything. Somehow, that seems comforting.

Looking at these pictures, I regret I didn’t take the whole bunch out to the parking lot, lie them on the ground, and very carefully photograph them. After all, the pictures become fewer and fewer, as if somehow trying to pay tribute to the frugality of the times they capture.

The first camera I remember owning was one our family bought at Sears just before a trip to California in 1984. I believe it was even a Sears brand; it seemed terribly fancy for a twelve-year-old, though it was just a point and shoot.

The next camera I remember was an SLR manual focus that I borrowed from a friend. I took some pictures of birds, but I don’t think I ever developed those shots.

It wasn’t until I went to Poland in 1996 that I became seriously interested in photography. I took a Canon point and shoot with me, but I quickly discovered its limitations. I headed to the market and bought a Zenit — a Russian made SLR that could drive nails. Literally.

K’s first camera was a Russian view finder that I can’t even recall the name of. She moved to Zenit and Nikon; I replaced my Zenit with a succession of Nikon and Canon manual and auto focus cameras.

Finally, K and I ended up with our current primary: a Nikon D70s, which was fairly cutting edge when we bought it. Since then, we’ve added a couple of lenses to our collection and have a whole bag of glass to carry around.

Friday, we pack our things and head to Charleston for a day of wandering about the city, stopping at cafes for coffee, taking pictures, and simply experiencing one of America’s most historic cities. We arrive and I glance in the back.

“Where’d you put the camera?” I’d been packing our bikes and related materials. I assumed…

“I didn’t get it. I thought you…”

We look at each other for a moment.

What to do?

Simple: enjoy Charleston without a camera. Life without a camera is possible.

In the meantime, Nana and Papa took the Girl to the serpentarium. Nana and Papa remembered their camera…

The tower at Furman.