A Passion For Flashin’

14 Dec

When I was fifteen, my Mum bought me a Polaroid camera. I loved it. Suddenly I went from this shy little wall flower to a girl who was constantly in your face trying to get you from the best angle so a square little disk of history would come shooting out of the mouth of my machine. I was never allowed to touch my Dad’s SLR camera as a little girl (even though Little Bean was the accident prone one and not me) so I used to just lovingly stroke the strap which I still remember as being green and grey, and dream of all the creations I could make. I’ve always been a bit like that you see. They say that you either use the right or left side of your brain (I forget which way round it is) and that one is creative and the other is analytical; well I use the creative side a bit much. In fact, I think that the analytical side withered and died a long time ago, due to my neglect. Saying that though, one of the guys at work gave up a long time trying to show me how to do a clever excel graph that ports information from all sorts of places and then puts it in a dynamic chart with a drop down menu.  I had a look at it again the other day and nearly gave him a heart attack when I presented him with my fantastic graph, that I had finally understood after literally hours of peering at my computer and uttering.. “eh??”.

But back to the camera. Once I was in possession of this, I was delighted. I took photos of everything I could find, popping up from nowhere and photographing my family. I still have a selection of eight photos that I took of my first boyfriend looking perplexed at what I was doing, and they still make me laugh. My favourite thing was waiting to watch the inky shapes appear out of nowhere, forming silhouettes out of the darkness of the shot like evolution. I loved it.

This is potentially what made me choose to study photography at A level. I was enthralled by the entire process and would spend hours with my friend Jo in the darkroom watching the shapes develop from white to through grey to black; pulling them out of the chemicals at just the right moment or risking losing the shots forever into a murky grey grave.

Nowadays you can’t get cheap Polaroid films but I still have that massive old camera in its box, gathering dust as a reminder of something that brought me endless happiness.

Was there something that drove your passion? Do you still have it?

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

The Byronic Man is my metaphorical three French hens. His dry wit never fails to put a grin on my face and I am often found uttering “right? RIGHT!” at some of his posts. He is truly one great writer. Go read!

My two calling birds were:Brooke & McKenzie

And my partridge in a pear tree was: The Redneck Princess

The post I think you should revisit of mine today is: The Squirrel all about the day that I saved the squirrel from my Dad.

Hope you have all made a dent in your Christmas shopping!

Belle xx

22 Responses to “A Passion For Flashin’”

  1. Just A Smidgen December 14, 2011 at 11:48 am #

    Isn’t it wonderful how an experience as a child can inspire a lifetime!

  2. kydel December 14, 2011 at 11:49 am #

    Your title lulled me into a false sense of smut there Belle! I thought you had taken to wearing a long beige overcoat, prowling the streets for someone to show your bits to!
    You did, however, teleport me back to the time of the polaroid camera. They should so make them cheaper again! I want one now!

  3. I'd Rather Be In Iceland December 14, 2011 at 11:49 am #

    This is a bit sad, but I had a tape recorder and loved taping other people’s conversations and pretending I was a spy! I never understood why my parents got really angry when I started playing their conversations back. : ) Anyway, I gave up on being a reporter a while ago when I realised that you had to write about boring things a lot of the time.

  4. visitingmissouri December 14, 2011 at 11:56 am #

    No polaroid, but when I was about 13, digital cameras became affordable. There still is an endless amount of pictures taking full opportunity of not having to develop.

  5. underwhelmer December 14, 2011 at 12:19 pm #

    Those little cameras have set many a shutter-bug on the path of professional photography. I’ve run into quite a few photographers in my line of work and it’s always amazing where they turn up.

    Great post. It’s nice to see something have so much of an impact with someone. 🙂

  6. prenin December 14, 2011 at 1:10 pm #

    My God daughter’s family were always puzzled why I wanted to get them in photographs and, later, on video.

    Four years ago I presented each of them with a dozen DVD’s of them growing up and only then did they understand what a gift I had created for them! 🙂

    Love and hugs!

    Prenin.

  7. Roshni December 14, 2011 at 2:02 pm #

    My passion…? I can’t think of anything other than writing, when it comes to passion! 🙂 And yes, I SO have it even now! 🙂

  8. susielindau December 14, 2011 at 2:36 pm #

    I haven’t even started my Christmas shopping yet! Yikes! I am going out today to cut off all my hair so I will use “shop therapy” afterwards!
    Great post!

  9. Chris Sheridan December 14, 2011 at 3:52 pm #

    Watching a photographic image slowly take form and appear is magical, whether in the dark room or from a Polaroid photo. I have many fond memories of both.

  10. JWo December 14, 2011 at 4:44 pm #

    I loved the title, even though I knew (sad face) I knew it wasn’t going to be the first thought that popped into my brain (you + Mardi Gras = lots o’ beads).

    Catchy titles like my Getting Into My Wife’s Panties or Don’t Touch My Wife’s P^ssy will get people to the site, but you have the ability to keep us there. 😉

    My childhood passion were little (American) football men, the ones that you could put on the electric football board (which I hated because I couldn’t control the players and I wanted them to run specific patterns). I’d sit at the table lining them up (offense and defense) and run plays for hours.

    Now all I have are video games and fantasy football.

  11. speccy December 14, 2011 at 4:46 pm #

    I’ve been scarred so badly by the expense of being a poor photographer way back when, I’ve only recently got a digital camera and started to actually enjoy using it!

    Glad you called to mine, though my computer ate your comment … 😉

  12. megrug December 14, 2011 at 4:55 pm #

    The Right side of your brain! Haha, my left side also withered and died long ago. My parents are probably both ashamed considering their affluence and understanding of math and science. Writing is my passion, I am sure you can relate in that regard. Something about pen to paper, fingers to a key board that really just makes me truly happy.

    Have a wonderful holiday my friend!

  13. gojulesgo December 14, 2011 at 7:51 pm #

    I didn’t know that about you and photography, Tinkerbelle! Awesome. And I LOVE me some Byronic Man!

    I’ve got all my Christmas shopping done thanks to Amazon. As for passion, I had a LOT of encouragement growing up when it came to writing; I’m not sure if I would have pursued it if I hadn’t…

  14. Dienna December 14, 2011 at 8:05 pm #

    I love Polaroid cameras! I love the instant gratification using them brings.

  15. nelle December 14, 2011 at 8:34 pm #

    At least you did not use it in the mould of Anthony Weiner…

  16. Sandi Ormsby December 14, 2011 at 9:53 pm #

    Way back in the day, I used to have the black polaroid camera. The film was and IS expensive! Reminds me of that song by OutKast “Hey Ya” that states “Shake it like a polaroid picture” (referring to a woman’s dancing) and then Polaroid issued a statement that we aren’t supposed to shake the film…that development works best when laid down on hard surface. I found the song:

    and here’s Polaroid’s statement:
    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111696,00.html

    🙂
    sandi

  17. kathryningrid December 15, 2011 at 2:45 am #

    I’m delighted that you chose to share such a view of your inspirations with us. What a grand 12 days you’ve concocted.

  18. BROOKEandMCKENZIE December 15, 2011 at 6:16 am #

    I remember getting a digital camera back in the day too and I’ll never forget how crappy the quality was but I documented my entire high school life. Although these pictures will haunt us forever, when we are in the right mood we all love to sit there and laugh at ourselves and the ridiculous outfit choices and hairstyles 14 year olds have.
    Since then cameras and photography have always been my passion. Just last Christmas I asked for a DSLR and am still trying to figure it out haha but working on it!

    brookeandmckenzie.wordpress.com

  19. TBM December 15, 2011 at 11:05 am #

    Great post. Can you believe that I haven’t started Christmas shopping yet? I’m in serious trouble…

  20. drewpan December 19, 2011 at 3:21 am #

    Very nice title! With the ability to write misleading and attention-grabbing titles like that, you should apply for a job at a tabloid hahaha!

    No, seriously you should!

Speak Your Mind.... Laughter is Catching!

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: