Accidental Art

Back in the dark ages, before digital cameras were ubiquitous and cheap, there was the 35mm camera. With real film and manual film winding. My parents gave me their trusty old Nikon that had served them from 1981 till the day I left for London in 2002. I appreciated having a camera with. There are too many fond memories that I would not otherwise have still at my fingertips, to rifle through when nostalgia hits, and to reminisce on the personal growth that started while I was abroad.

There were definitely moments where I was slightly ungrateful for having this old dinosaur of a camera to lug around though. While we were on a walking architectural tour of Paris with one of my classes, my ancient piece of ... technology started jamming up. This was not the time or the place for it to give me trouble either. Paris in itself is beautifully detailed, filled with picturesque buildings on almost every corner. We had just come up to the famous Metro entrance by the Louvre which was covered in color-saturated glass balls in an arching structure, so I snapped a picture for my album. Somehow the camera felt a little sticky during the exposure, but I thought nothing of it until a few hundred meters later when we came upon another scenic building. I tried pressing the button, and it only took half-way. I tried winding the film, and it finally let me wind it, but everything seemed to be acting up on the camera, so I stopped using it for awhile. I took out that roll of film, and added it to the ever-increasing pile of film canisters for developing when I got home. It wasn't until a few months later, when all the pictures came back from my trip that I realized just how lucky I was to have had this camera. Below is the picture that made all my little worries worth it.