My dad was commenting about how good the Alaska pics turned out. I assured him that it was mostly the new camera. It’s amazing how a good camera can make you a better photographer. You stop to think about how to shoot the image, the aperture, the lighting, rather than just pointing and shooting (although 75% of it still is).

Half-way through the conversation he reminded me about the infamous “campfire photos”. One summer when I was 12 or 13 (can’t remember), my parents shipped me off to summer camp for two weeks. I was dreading the trip. We didn’t really take family vacations other than a weekend here and there. So TWO WHOLE WEEKS away, for an introvert like me, was a frightening thought.

For the most part camp went well. I kissed a cute boy in the back of the bus, refused to go horseback riding, and was determined to wear these awful heart shaped sunglasses for the entire time. I probably even wore them while I was sleeping. I loved them.

When I returned home from camp, I was so excited to develop the pictures that I took. At the time I was using something close to this:

Which, even in the early 80’s, was archaic.

The first set of prints contained snapshots of girls that I had met, counselors that seemed so grown up but were probably 20 years old at the time, and campgrounds among other things. But then I got to the next set of pictures. I had taken an ENTIRE roll of film of the campfire.

Here is an example of the results:

24 TIMES.

Children these days will never know the joys of having to wait a few days to get film developed and then get it back only to find appalling examples of the limitations of amateur photography.