Photographs
By Neil M. Travis, Montana/Arizona
"Kodachrome, they give us those nice bright colors. They give us the
greens of summers. Makes you think all the world's a sunny day." The
words of that old Simon and Garfunkel tune ran through my head when
I was looking at some old photographs the other day. I suddenly realized
as I ruffled through a box of photos that photographs, the kind that most
of us grew up with, are quickly become an anachronism. Today we talk
about images and not photographs, we store them on hard drives and not
in cardboard boxes, and we view them on computer screens or send them
as attachments in an email.
Back in the day JC purchased a pocket sized 35 mm camera to carry
on the stream. I think it was a Rolex. It was a 'point and shoot' view finder
model, and it took great pictures. Not being as flush as JC I purchased a
similar camera from Sears. Over the years I have taken hundreds of pictures
with that little camera and the picture quality is good enough for publication.
Until I switched almost exclusively to digital cameras I was still using that little
old camera.
Carrying a camera on the stream provides a visual reminder of your
day on the water. You can use the images as an appendix to your
fishing log. Most of the modern cameras have a macro mode that
will allow you to make images of the flies you used, and even take
reasonable images of the actual insects. They will allow you to
preserve images of your fishing buddies and the places where
you fished.
Recently an old friend emailed me several images of him fishing on
the Au Sable River in Michigan. For many years this was my home
water, and I spent many days fishing and camping with this old friend
in that place. I have not seen him or that piece of water in over two
decades. Such is the magic of the visual image.
Photographs or digital images are pieces of time forever frozen on
a piece of celluloid or as pixels on a computer chip. When you look
at a photograph you hold a piece of the past, an instant in time that
is forever gone except in this frozen image. Photographs are our
attempt at freezing time, of creating permanence in an impermanent
world, of seizing immortality where only mortality reigns. The people
in old photographs never get older. They smile up at us from across
the sands of time; forever young, forever happy. They speak to us
of times gone by, of places and times that exist now only in those
images and of people whose names we may have forgotten, of people
who, like those times, no longer exist. With a photograph we strike a
blow against time and the intransigent nature of our existence. They
remind us of happier times.
With the start of the angling season for many anglers it's time to get
out the rods and reels. Time to check the waders for dry rot, dust
off the fly vest, and buy your fishing license. It's also a time to check
the camera batteries and get ready to record the memories that this
season will afford. These are the good old days that you will be talking
about in a few years. Don't forget to save a few images to remember
those places and people that made those places memorable. ~ The Chronicler
From A Journal Archives
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