Slightly Wordy Wednesday

There's this thing about me which may or may not be common among men - I don't know, I've never really explored it in order to find out.

I am a victim of urges.

Victim? Well, yes. The 'urges' of which I speak have nothing at all to do with the baser urges I share with all other men - the drive for money, sex, and power. No, these urges are more subtle, more refined and more definitive of my makeup and character.

These 'urges' usually come at me in waves. Sometimes they last for days or weeks. Until they are satisfied.

For example. Sometimes, out of the clear blue, I'll get an urge to buy a book. A NEED to buy a book. It's not a book I need or have heard of - it's just this urge to buy a book, and it will disquiet me until I go to the bookstore and look around until I find something that interests me (and believe me when I tell you there are HUNDREDS of books that interest me, on sale, right now). Sometimes, I'll go to a bookstore and know I have 'the urge', but look through the bookstore and NOT FIND anything that does it for the particular urge cycle I'm in. Or I'll find something but it's so expensive I can't bring myself to spend the money right then. And sometimes just that much is enough to satisfy 'the urge'.

It's really very strange.

For years I've dealt with this urge to photograph things. To take pictures. To have a camera in my hands. To own cameras. I have a dozen collectible Argus C3's. The 'Brick'. I have half a dozen Exakta VX's, the world's original SLR system cameras. I have a Konica T4 I bought in 1979 with an excellent assortment of lenses - Konica, to my mind, made the BEST glass ever for 35mm SLR's. And I have my Canon 30D digital, and my Fujifilm J10 point and shoot digital, and since I've had those last two cameras I have taken many, many more pictures than ever I did before - because digital is so quick, so easy and so inexpensive compared to film.

But yesterday I found myself struck by an urge. An urge to shoot some film with a couple of very specific cameras. I own a Zorki 4 and a Zorki 4k - both of which are in pristine shape. From the 1950's. These cameras are later models of the original Zorki cameras which the Russians built as copies of the German Leica 35mm camera. The FIRST 35mm cameras.

I love my Zorkies. But with the advent of digital and the introduction into my inventory of the Canon and the Fuji, I was sure that the shooting of film was done. It's expensive, it is NOT instantly gratifying as is digital, and prints from the One Hour are never as good as what you could have printed yourself - it's just more convenient. I suppose the one and saving grace is I can get CD's of a roll of film as well as the prints and negatives. And I can run the stuff through Photoshop.

I expect you'll see some shots here soon. On a Wednesday probably. If I remember to write down the details, I'll even include the technicals - you know, Shutter speed, Aperture .. wait - that's all I have to work with. It's all manual. No automation.

I'll have to think about what I'm doing as I satisfy that urge.

Isn't that what one does as one pursues money, sex, and power?

Ndinombethe.

p.s. You may have noticed I'm not around too much on blogs right now - and I haven't been very good about answering comment here, like I normally do. There's just a lot going on, is all. I'll get back to old habits as I can. I do love you guys.