This is the second broken camera I've become rather enchanted with. The first was an ancient film camera (old when I bought it in a second hand store in Europe), a Nikon FM. It had been toted all over the planet in some rather deplorable conditions, and I'm embarrassed to have done what I did to that poor gadget. Eventually, the film stopped spooling properly, sprockets would show up on the negatives, the light bled in weird ways. But I kept using it because I never knew what it would do next. I'm still working with some of the negatives, they are ghostly and strange. Here's a fairly normal looking shot from Italy:
Now my first digital camera has gone the way of all gadgets, another victim of entropy. I haven't decided which model will be my new camera, and I really wanted to photograph my Russian sunflowers. They don't last long, and they are extraordinary. So out came the broken camera with the screwed up lens:
And you know, I really like this shot. This one, too:
I'm keeping the kaput camera, and will probably use it now and then, even after I've got the new one. Who knows what will turn up?
The lens is a mess, but then, if my own lenses were perfect, and I saw life clearly, with perfect equilibrium and peace, I probably wouldn't still be here. Ditto for everyone else. We've all got lens issues, don't we? But sometimes, that's a good thing, and we see things a little differently now and then.
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