My father was a passionate Photographer. I remember him by the typical leather smell of his Rolleicord’s ever-ready case. It was the kind of photographer who saw the picture he wanted to make upfront and took literally hours to find the good position, determined the desired exposure and then waited until the weather followed his plan.
When I was twelve years old , he decided to teach me all about photography for my birthday.
I was excited because I would get my sticky hands on that intriguing smelling piece of technique.
Imagine the deception when my father showed up with ‘my first camera’
It was a 20cmx20cm black cardboard with a 6cmx6cm hole in it.
“Son” he said. “This are all the tools you need to learn how to see what photo you want to make”
I stood with my ass in my hands.
He continued “when you can show me, through this cardboard, something worthy to spent a frame, I learn you how to do, to make the negative and the print. “
“This cardboard “ he said “is you camera lens, even better than my Rollei, because yours is a true zoom. You can keep it close to your eye for wide and far away for tele. And you have your feet as well.”
I was to young to understand, my father was 65 when I was 12 and he never got the chance to explain me again when I was at the age I was really bitten by the photo microbe, years later.
Luckily I remembered his story and years later I did the exercises to walk around with a piece of card board with a hole the size of the negative and it did not only gave me precious insight how to look but it was the ultimate tool to understand focal length, position and perspective.
My neighbor inherited the camera of here father. A marvelous Nikon F3 set. She asked me if I could learn here to photograph.
Imagine here reaction when I picked here up to go for a photo walk, with only two pieces of punched cardboard.
After a half hour she realized I was not that idiot she initially thought and we had a nice afternoon and for me it was a good refreshing exercise as well.
Of coarse we ended that afternoon taking some pictures with here Nikon, I was always less patient than my old man.
