UNSETTLING DEVELOPMENTS

I gave up photography years ago and got rid of my German precision single- lens-reflex, automatic, talking camera. It was top of the line back then, but we soon became incompatible. Fritz, my camera sidekick, was beginning to get very rude.

At first he was an extremely polite teacher, just what I needed after I put aside my father’s Kodak box camera and spent a bundle on a top-notch instrument. “Please don’t at the sun aim,” he’d say. (Although he was a photography genius, he didn’t have a complete command of the English language.) “May I remind you, sir, the batteries to change.”

I soon began to detect an undertone of impatience and even hostility. I was taking pictures at a neighbor’s cocktail party when Fritz hissed rather loudly, ‘I have twice reminded you that the film you have used up, Noodlehead!”

It was quite embarrassing to stand there arguing with my camera while my friends nudged each other and snickered. I liked it better when cameras knew their place. I wished there was a “whisper” button on this advanced model.

Allowances should have been made for a freshman photographer who should have been politely encouraged rather than scolded in public. Did Leonardo’s canvases shout rude remarks at him ? Did Michelangelo’s chisels wound him with peevish insults?

I had already endured sharp criticisms during my early efforts with the old Kodak . I’d volunteered to take pictures of my fifth grade classmates at St. Odilo’s and expected to receive compliments and maybe print orders when I showed up with the results of a dozen uniquely aimed shots.

Admittedly there were some unflattering distortions caused by my experimental camera angles and a couple of double exposures, but I was totally unprepared for the insulting remarks and the guffawing. Surely, Sister Jane Aloysius could have found it in her heart to be more charitable.

I never could keep pace over the years with photography’s increasing complexity. It was no longer just a matter of pointing and shooting with a reasonable amount of light and trying to capture at least the top halves of my subjects. Balancing the exposure time with the appropriate lens opening and getting the targets into sharp focus was, for me, mind boggling. Using a flash increased the complexity of the puzzle.

That’s why I invested in a talking camera. I needed an embedded professional to take care of the mind-boggling details. But I didn’t need to be criticized for evey bungled setting. Step by step instructions recited calmly would have sunken in eventually.

I never actually got rid of Fritz, hoping he’d eventually soften his technique and be a big help. His battery is apparently top of the line because some nights he wakes me up shouting from the closet. “Dummkopf, ohne mich wirst du scheitern!” If you translate that, you’ll see why he’s locked in the closet.