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22 January, 2001

BEING BITTEN BY THE SHUTTER BUG AGAIN

Quick - what's the first image that comes to mind when you think of Japanese tourists? Groups of Japanese all tumbling out of a bus at once with their cameras held to their faces to capture the nearby monument or view has become a familiar sight.

For a high school student, I knew more about the history and craft of photography than some professional photographers.

The obsession of Japanese with photography is well-documented; it's not much of a stereotype. After photography was introduced to Japan, it became customary for Japanese to memorialize every major event with posed portraits - even funerals became occasions for family photos. And as Japanese emigrated to the West to work and settle in Hawaii or America, photography was key to the concept of "picture brides," as portraits were sent back and forth across the Pacific of both the eligible men in the new world and the women back home, chosen by their families to make the journey across the ocean.

Since the Meiji Restoration, when Japan made a conscious decision to catch up with all the cultures, customs and technology of the West after centuries of isolation, Japanese companies have competed with the best lens makers and camera manufacturers in Europe to create world-class equipment under such brand names as Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Yashica, Minolta and Olympus. Fuji film has for years been a global competitor to Kodak. And Japanese of all ages are comfortable either taking pictures or posing for them (flashing the ever-present "peace" sign).

I had a succession of cameras starting when I was very young. I can't remember the brand name of my first camera, if it even had one. It was a big clunky thing that took paper-covered rolls of film that I had to unwind then spool into the camera manually. I got a Kodak Instamatic - didn't everybody? - in the mid-1960s when the little square cameras were first introduced, promising much easier use with its drop-in film cassettes and rotating flashcubes. It seems I've been taking snapshots of family, friends and family trips all my life.

But I really got bitten by the shutter bug when I was a teenager. That's when someone - a family friend? an uncle? - gave me a broken Yashica 35 millimeter single-lens reflex camera. It couldn't take pictures, but I could look through its viewfinder, which used a series of mirrors to let you actually see through the lens. I learned every inch of that camera, and figured out how the thing worked. And, I wanted one that worked.

My father had been in the US Army in Japan, so we still had "PX," or Post Exchange privileges, where we could buy goods at very low prices through a catalog. (It's how GIs in the 1960s were able to introduce fancy Hi-Fi stereo systems as well as high-end Japanese and European cameras to the US.) I wore out the camera pages of that catalog by folding he corners of favorite pages and circling cameras I was considering, and finally chose the tool I would use throughout high school as a serious photographer: A Canon Ftb.

Over the years I bought many accessories including zoom lenses and wide-angle lenses. I stepped up to a top-of-the-line Canon F1 camera. I subscribed to several photography magazines. I learned the process of developing film and making my own prints in an elaborate home darkroom that my father and I set up in the basement. For a high school student, I knew more about the history and craft of photography than some professional photographers. I took photographs all through my college years, although my degree was in painting.

And then I stopped.

I sold much of my equipment to my younger brother, Glenn, who is now an award-winning photographer for the Denver Post. It's a long story, but I tired of the process of developing and printing photographs, although I still liked the idea of taking pictures. So I bought a Polaraid camera that allowed me to take pictures and see them right away. I also eventually bought a simple, automatic Olympus camera.

A few years ago, I bought a used Canon Ftb and a wide angle lens from a photographer friend, but I still didn't feel the bite of the shutter bug. I used it sometimes for artsy shots, but mostly I used the reliable Olympus camera for family snapshots and photos of trips. There's a wonderful Japanese word, "mendokusai," which means "too much trouble." It was mendokusai to use all the fancy equipment again. In fact, I feel the same about taking my rolls of film to the store and filling out the order form to get them processed. I know, I know, I'm lazy and I want instant gratification. I admit it.

Then for Christmas, Erin gave me a surprise gift of an Olympus D-490 camera, a digital camera that doesn't use film but instead converts images to digital data that can be stored on a computer, or even a Web page. It has some wonderful advanced features, and is a big step above just an "amateur" camera. The great advantage of digital images is that I can check the photo right away by looking at a screen on the back of the camera, and if I don't like it, I can delete it with a click, just like deleting a file or an e-mail on a computer. I'll never need to buy film again, or even another memory chip for the camera, because I can copy the photos onto a computer, or just delete them, and make more room on the chip.

I love it, and feel as if it has given me a renewed vigor to capture the people and the world around me without worrying about wasting any film, or dealing with the "mendokusai" aspects of having the film developed and printed. I've already taken hundreds of photos in just a few weeks, as if I'm purging years of repressed snapshots out of my system so I can start taking serious, artsy pictures again.

I've been bitten by the shutter bug again, so many years after my first camera. And I'm really, really enjoying myself - even if I look like a Japanese tourist everywhere I go.