Nostalgia

I’ve been playing with my camera a ton, in the last couple years, which is a wonderful thing for me. I’ve actually sold some images, which pleased me, because I don’t think of myself as a professional. Although not many, it was a nice feeling that others appreciated my eye.

One of the things I’ve been doing is using the flickr service. In flickr, there are many, many groups, in all kinds of themes, that people can join, and send their photos to, just for the fun and feedback. Groups such as: “Only Yellow Flowers”, “Still Life with Vegetables”, “ArtsyNudes”, and so on. There’s a group for just about anything you can think of, and if there isn’t a suitable group for your tastes, well, you can create one.

One group I just joined, is called: Mission 24. Basically, about once a week, an email is sent with a theme; you then have 24 hours to interpret, photograph, process and upload photos that meet that theme, to your mind. Today, I completed my first assignment, and wanted to share one of the photos here too.

The theme is Nostalgia; one of the photos is here:

Here’s the text I put beneath the photo, explaining why this is nostalgic to me, and where the inspiration came from:
For Mission 24, “Nostalgia”. I started thinking about that, and my mind wandered to my paternal grandfather. When I was young, from about 6 through perhaps 10, He would on special occasions get out the Edison Cylinders, and play them on this antique player.

I used to love those times, he and I would sit on the floor in front of the machine, listening to the crackly, scratchy old recordings of artist’s long gone, and in some cases not identified on the recordings and so unknown.

When I took these shots, I had the “Root Beer Rag” playing, as it was his favorite of them all. Not that you can hear it or tell the player is going- but I know, and I smiled.

Silly, maybe, but I think Granddad may have smiled, too.

~ by Dave on December 31, 2008.