Lens Perspective

I think you should know right off, I live in a very small apartment. Two rooms plus a kitchen sink. There's so much room in this apartment, that the only space large enough for the fridge was out on the balcony overlooking Beggarman's Alley.

Which is OK, 'cause I'm not a junk collector. When I'm ready to depart this world no extra baggage will weigh me down. Except for the cameras. All four hundred and sixty-five of them.

I can't get rid of them because they were gifts. From my Mom. Every day she visits me with a "surprise." The only mystery involved is whether it's a Canon, a Minolta, or a Nikon. But we go through the whole routine, anyways.

"Oh Mom. A gift? For me? You shouldn't have."

She beams. "I just wanted to bring you a little something."

With Mother around, you don't just rip into a package. You open the tinselled paper carefully. And express delight. My tongue's so swollen from biting back sarcasm any sound uttered will pass for appreciation.

My arm sweeps an arc which encompasses the room. "And where shall we put it?"

Mom eyes the room with speculation. It's as if she's trying to find one more spot on an over-ornamented Christmas tree for the last decoration.

Her voice, a vague contralto, trebles: "I'll leave that for you to decide, dear. It's your camera. There's film in it. Shall we take some pictures?"

That's part of the routine, too. This glorious moment must be perpetuated.

Snap. Click. Snap. Click. Grin. We pass the Kodak back and forth. Forever frozen vignettes of Mother and of me.

By my calculations, a roll of 24 pictures times 465 cameras produces 11,160 immortal encapsulations of our relationship. Ergo, 11,184 with today's batch. Suffice it to say, Mom never heard of Brylcream. If she'd been a fellow she would know, a little dab'll do ya.

It was time for the tango to continue. The next dance step of our ritual? Looking at yesterday's mug shots.

Opening the steamer trunk filled with slick glossies, I handed Mom her latest fix of plastic personality profiles. She frowned as she usually does while thumbing through the stack. Doesn't usually take her long to flip past those that are out of focus, blurred, or too underdeveloped to see.

Today was different, though. She pulled one from the lot and clutched it to her chest. "Ah .... at last." Her eyes twinkled as she peered at me over her spectacle rims. "If I had seen these yesterday, I could have saved $582.99, today."

"Huh?"

"It only took eleven thousand, one hundred-and-sixty tries, but eventually you got a good picture of me. What a smart boy, you are."

"Does that mean no more cameras?"

She moved the stack of Canons, Leicas, Yashicas, Hasselblads, Mamiyas, Voigtlanders, and Minoltas off a chair and sat down. "Why do you need more when we finally found one you can operate?"

Mother stayed for a cup of tea. When she left, the One-Good-Photo went with her. After her departure, I felt impelled to examine each and every photo in the steamer trunk.

She had a point. There were no overly impressive pictures of her. But then, I noticed, there were none of me, either.

Ah . . . .

I think tomorrow I'll start a new routine. Visit Mom before she can visit me. I'll take a gift, of course.

Wonder how many of these image snappers I can unload before she masters the technique of portrait photography . . . .
Lens Perspective © 2005 Chaeli Sullivan