Photographs and Memories

Fisher-Price photo on flight to Miami

I was born and raised in Rochester, N.Y., home of Eastman Kodak. While I always loved taking pictures, I'll be honest, I was never interested in the science or mechanics of photography. I just loved the idea that you could use an image to preserve a memory for all time. When I was a kid I remember not having a camera and just taking pictures in my mind. I thought, if I take a mental picture of this, I will always remember it. And honestly, I still do remember some of my mental pictures.

In junior high school I got my first real camera, a basic Kodak point and shoot. I began to document my classmates and school events with the idea they would be a historic record.

On a Florida vacation I suffered my first camera setback when I got sand in it and it stopped working. I didn't get another until much later in high school, when I again began to record people and significant events. I dropped off several rolls of film at the Yearbook office and was surprised to see so many of them filling the pages of our senior yearbook. That was an early success, but there would be many more failures.

One of the only surviving photos from Fandango.

On "Fandango," the 1999 cross country road trip I took with my friend Kate, our bags were stolen, including 30 or so undeveloped rolls of film. I was very upset, and the incident made me question if documenting so much of my life was a worthy or even noble pursuit. We've all heard the belief that taking a photograph can steal a person's soul. I'm not sure that's the case in a general sense, but if you are photographing someone without their permission, at minimum you are invading their privacy and personal boundaries. You could say you are stealing something. I admit I've been guilty of this on many occasions, particularly when traveling. I began to question if the theft of my film was some sort of karma for "stealing" souls, or if it was just some way to get me to stop documenting and start living.

One year later on a trip around Europe, my camera died and I again fell short in my attempt to document a major life event. When I returned, I didn't bother purchasing a new camera. At the time I was living in San Francisco, where the mindset of myself and many around me was to "live in the now." I was often told not to take photos or record anything, just live in the moment and experience life as it happens. If you are taking a photo, you're missing it. I fully bought into this. For one thing, it made perfect sense when I was high, and it also seemed to mesh with how I had let my photographs define my previous trips, and how I let their loss or destruction affect how I felt about my trip. I didn't take photos for nearly 4 years.

But in 2004 I had the opportunity to travel to China and Japan. I thought about it long and hard, and decided I just had to take photos. You can't change who you are, and to me, documenting is living. You can say taking photos has you standing on the sidelines, but when I take them, I feel an active participant in whatever is going on.

The advent of digital cameras had me hopeful that I wouldn't suffer the same issues I had with my film cameras of the past. I bought a Fuji FinePix s3000, but I was clueless to the technology. So when uploading the photos to my laptop, I accidentally erased them all!! A techy co-worker did manage to recover some of my deleted photos, but this mishap again made me question my photographic pursuits. Why did every trip end with photos lost? Was this all a coincidence? Or something more? Was I subconsciously sabatoging myself? Or was someone or something trying to stop me from taking all these photos? I will never know the reason for sure, but it definitely got my attention. Maybe that's the reason. Maybe it was just another roadblock I had to push through.

I decided that going forward I would keep taking photos despite the setbacks, but I would embrace technology rather than fear it. Many of the problems I had were preventable if I had only taken the time to learn how things work. I also decided to try to be more conscious of who and what I photograph, and why. I now try to be respectful and selective when taking photos.

In November 2010 I took a trip to Iceland and Europe. I purchased a Canon EOS Rebel T1i, and this time, I studied up before going. Believe it or not, I encountered no problems with this camera or the pictures I took. But this was also the first major trip I took with a smartphone. I downloaded the Hipstamatic and CameraBag apps for my iPhone, and had a field day taking all kinds of quirky photos with these apps. Honestly, they were the photos I most enjoyed taking. So what happened? In Berlin I dropped my iPhone in the toilet! My phone was completely dead, and I wasn't even upset by the possibility that I lost a $200 phone. It was that I lost all the photos I had taken for 3 weeks. There was nothing I could do except put the iPhone into a bag of rice and wait until it dried out. I told a friend what happened and she actually said, "Maybe it's because you take too many photos." Wow, really? There was that thought again.

It's a funny word, taking photos. It kind of implies you are stealing something. I have heard my friend Tom Barker use the term making photos. I like this much better. I wasn't stealing, I was creating. I think that's a good thing.

When I returned home to NY, I plugged in my phone.... and it worked! My photos, and my faith, were restored.

Today I press on, recording moments, scenes and memories. Knowing that each time I take them, they too are not permanent. Nothing is.

Mt. Fuji Miracle

In April 2004, I spent some time traveling in Japan — visiting Nara, Kyoto, Tokyo, and Nikko. It was an incredible trip, but as I sat on the plane departing Tokyo, I couldn't help feeling disappointed that I didn't manage to see Mt. Fuji. I realized I had missed an opportunity, and wondered if I would ever make it back to Japan again to see it. As the plane took off, the reality set in - it was over, I didn't see it, and there was nothing I could do about it. The best I could tell myself is that it just wasn't meant to be.

I leaned back in my seat, put my headphones on and closed my eyes. After we were in the air for a little while I just happened to glance out the window - and couldn't believe what I saw. We were flying right past Mt. Fuji! It's beautiful snow-capped peak was breaking right through the clouds, and I had a direct view of it, clear as day. My jaw practically hit the floor. I fumbled for my camera, managed to snap a quick photo, and just sat there and stared at it in amazement until it moved out of sight.

This is the luckiest photo I have ever taken in my life. I didn't do anything special other than have a loaded camera with me, zoom and snap. Sometimes the scenery really does do all the work.

Fortunately for me I was on the right side of the plane (technically, the left) and looked out the window at just the right moment to see it. And the way the clouds broke to reveal the mountain as we passed, well, I couldn't help but feel that Mt. Fuji was winking at me.

Note: I chose this picture to be the cover of the 2011 Calendar to Cure Sanfilippo. Here's wishing for a cure for Jonah Wood Weishaar and all the Sanfilippo kids.

Flushing and Blushing

I was using a restaurant bathroom in Nara, Japan and the toilet had one of those high-tech keypads attached to it. It must have had 50 buttons on it that did everything from warm the seat to splash your cheeks (yes, there was an image of a butt getting water-blasted on it). But for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to flush the toilet. I tried a number of different buttons, but the closest I could find was one that simulated the flushing noise, but did not actually flush the toilet. Complicating matters, a woman was standing outside of my stall waiting for me to finish. I didn't know what to do. Should I walk out and leave her to my unflushed toilet? She would think I was some sort of pig. I kept trying buttons, to no avail. I hoped she would just leave, but she didn't. Finally, I had to open the stall door. I apologized profusely and tried to explain (in my best pantomime) that I couldn't find the right button to flush the toilet. She nodded, walked past me to the back of the toilet and pushed down on the metal lever. The flusher was exactly the same as American toilets! I had been so distracted by the computerized keypad that it never dawned on me to check for a manual lever.

Goodbye China, Hello Kitty!

The following is an e-mail I sent to family and friends during my April 2004 trip to China and Japan:

Kon-nichiwa!

And hello from the future, where today is tomorrow, and yesterday was.. uh.. hmm... well anyway, greetings from the far east, so far east in fact... it's west!

I'm writing to you from Japan - The Land of the Rising Sanrio. It's been a strange, crazy, dizzying first week or so. I started my trip in Hong Kong, SAR - or Hong Kong, SARS - as they like to joke. I met up with 2 girls from Hong Kong, Tess and Emily, whom I met while traveling in Finland a few years back. They proceeded to show me all the sights and completely stuff me with food. I don't normally eat a lot of meat or Chinese food, so it didn't take much to make me full. It was hilarious because I am as big as Tess and her boyfriend Terrance put together, and yet they ate 3 times as much as I did. They couldn't understand how little I ate. Mind you, I was eating huge plates of noodles, meat, assorted fried foods, soup, and desserts. For 3 meals. Forget about Pearl Cream, I want to know how the Chinese can eat so much and stay so thin.

One afternoon I went with Emily and her boyfriend Sunny to see the Biggest Buddha in the World. (I will be able to confirm this after today, because here in Nara, Japan they also claim to have the biggest Buddha in the World. Perhaps I should suggest regionalizing the title, like The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota.  See - no controversy there - you know exactly what you're getting.  But I digress...) So after we ate a lunch as big as the Buddha itself, we got on a bus that took us from the top of the hill back down to the bottom of the island.  A high speed, curvy, swervy, bus ride. Basically, imagine eating at a China Buffet, and then immediately following, riding a rollercoaster. For 45 minutes. I thought I was going to puke, but somehow I managed to hold it together. Thank God - we finally got off the bus. Except the ferry boat to Hong Kong was leaving that second, and we had to SPRINT to catch it. So now imagine eating a China Buffet, riding a rollercoaster, and then running the 220. As we were running I could actually feel my lunch coming up and I had to stop a few times and double over to hold the food back in, and then keep running. It wasn't quite a movie moment where we had to jump over the water and land on the boat as it was taking off, but it was darn close. Thank God - we were finally on the boat. Except now the boat is rocking and swaying. You get the idea.

Seriously, the food was delicious and I had an amazing time in HK and mainland China. It was frustrating, chaotic, confusing, crazy, exhausting, beautiful, charming, warm, friendly, and exciting. And that was just day one. As for the bathrooms, well, let's just say I know where they got the title "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".

I'd love to write more but my time is almost up.  I'm in Japan for about a week before finishing up in Beijing.  I don:t know if I'll get a chance to send another update, so for now, it's Sayonara!!

Much Love,
Tootsie

The Ordinary is Extraordinary

While traveling in Tokyo, my friend Chiharu took me to a huge market that sold all kinds of food, but what caught my eye was some packaged octopi. I thought they would make a great photo and began snapping away. Chiharu thought it was weird and asked me why I was taking pictures.
I explained to her that I'd never seen packaged octopus like that in any American grocery stores.

Later in her apartment I was looking through a photo album from her California vacation. Amongst the typical scenic shots was a picture of a frying pan with sausage and eggs in it. Not even realizing I was doing the same thing she did earlier, I asked why she would take a photo of eggs and sausages. And she explained to me that it was exotic to her! It literally hadn't crossed my mind that something so completely ordinary to me could be so exotic to someone else.

Continuing to flip through the album, I saw a picture of her holding up a gallon of milk in a grocery store. So I said, "Ok, I know you have milk here, so why did you take this picture?" And she said, "because it's SO BIG!"