The Online Photographer

I've returned from an enjoyable weekend in Vermont. I drove out there on Friday. On Saturday, I did a "trip within a trip" and drove from South Strafford in Vermont down to Cambridge, Massachusetts (I always spell out American place names for the benefit of international TOP readers) to visit my mother in the nursing home where she has been for years.

The visit was marred because I lost my camera. My much-modified Sigma FP-m monochrome that I kitted out and customized to my liking and for my purposes—gone. Halfway through the day in Cambridge it disappeared—misplaced, left behind, snitched or stolen. Who knows.

The weekend visit was to the home environs of my very dear old friends Jim and Becky in South Strafford. I've written about them before, but not for a long time—not only are they among the people I love the most of all the people I have met or known in my 68 years of life; not only are they remarkably interesting, thoughtful, wise, humane people; but they live a rich and different life, one that is close to being emblematic of a dream for many city-dwellers. They live in a solar house on one of the oldest continuously-operating land co-ops in the United States, on the back side of a high ridge, up a long dirt road that for most of its course just goes up and up and up some more. The co-op is called Blue Moon. They designed and built the house themselves (I gave them a week's work on the house as a wedding present), 24x24 and three stories. The design, mainly researched and drawn by Becky, has proven over the years to be really excellent in many ways; it's intimate, flexible, with excellent light and ventilation, and it somehow manages to comfortably accommodate them, and previously their now-married daughter, in addition to 6,000 books. That's about the size of Thomas Jefferson's library, which was purchased after the War of 1812 by Congress to form the core of the Library of Congress. The porch where we ate all our meals, with its spectacular views entirely of wilderness—you can see sixty miles on a clear day but zero signs of civilization—is simply one of the nicest places on Earth to be on a Summer's day. Such a beautiful spot.

And this visit, two new additions—an electric car (theirs is an Ioniq 5) and a shower for the first time—

Jim says most of their guests are skeptical of an outdoor shower before they try it, but then, after they experience it, they love it. True for me! It's surprisingly delightful. Like standing under a waterfall in the Garden of Eden. It's easy to get the perfect temperature by turning the hot lever all the way on, then adding cold as desired—it's so easy and simple I'm half tempted to convert my shower at home to simple ball valves (the lever-operated shutoff valves you see on copper plumbing pipes). Jim and Becky are the last house on the road, so it's very private—nothing but woods beyond. Critters are the only peeping Toms. There are daisies by your feet. A couple of honeybees buzzed past on their way to the goldenrod a few feet away, a goldfinch flitted around, and in the basement window (the one with the reflection in the picture) a spider was busily building a picture-perfect Charlotte-worthy web. They do have to keep the soaps and shampoos inside. They left them out at first but a bear got into them. Using toiletries with a lavender scent helps, because bears don't like lavender. But as a silver lining, you no longer have to open the shampoo—just squeeze it, and the shampoo coils out of a hole made by the bear's tooth. 

It's only for the temperate months, though. In winter the pipes would freeze. So there's a showering season at Blue Moon. For the intemperate months, they have one of those old-fashioned ball-and-claw foot bathtubs in the main bathroom upstairs.

A senior moment to end all senior moments
I'll post more about the trip in days to come—there's much more to tell—but since I opened the door I'm not going to leave you in suspense. Just around the corner from Sancta Maria Nursing Facility, the old-age home where my mother is, what should I drive past but Digital Silver Imaging, a photo lab we have some history with. I had forgotten they were in Cambridge, but there they were. They're now a full-service printing lab, but they were originally famous for making silver-gelatin B&W prints on traditional paper from digital originals, an unusual capability for a lab and something they still do. I had some administrative details to figure out before I could get into the Nursing Facility, so I backtracked to stop in at DSI. Unfortunately, they're closed on weekends, but the door said "Or by Appointment" and gave a phone number, so I called and left messages for DSI proprietor Eric Luden on the two lines. 

On Monday, heading back home in the car, I waited until I was on a mountaintop so I could get good signal, and called DSI—just following my footsteps to see if there was any chance I had left my camera at the nursing home, at Chipotle, at DSI, or any of my other stops on Saturday. My next step was going to be to file a police report with serial numbers and begin searching to see if the camera would show up for sale in eBay or Facebook Marketplace listings. It is a pretty unique camera! Incredibly, a DSI employee named Joe had arrived to open the shop that morning and had found my camera sitting on a ledge outside the door! I guess I must have put it down to call. But they have it, and will be shipping it back to me as soon as we work out the logistics. It survived two whole days outdoors in plain view of a pedestrian sidewalk only a couple of yards away, in Cambridge, one of the busiest suburbs of Boston. Amazing. So on the one hand, I'm an idiot, and on the other, I'm as lucky as can be. I managed to get the Pentax pass-around equipment insured, but I didn't think to have my own equipment insured at the same time. 

I have no idea why I would have taken it into the lab—I'm usually quite comfortable leaving it in the car—and why I would not simply have slung it over my shoulder to get my hands free to make those calls. That's my habit. Or why I would not immediately have retraced my steps to try to track it down as soon as I realized it was missing. I guess I was feeling emotional, distracted, and upset about the imminent prospect of seeing my mother, who is in truly tragic and troubling condition. I'll write a post about camera-carrying hygiene, next. 

Mike

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Featured Comments from:

Eric Luden: "Sorry to have missed you Mike, but so glad your camera was still here. I hope to see some of the files from that Sigma Monochrome—let's make a new silver print and a follow-up story! All's well that ends well. My best regards."

Greg Heins: "I left a camera of similar value on a park bench in Boston several years ago after a total-waste-of-time conversation I hadn't wanted to have in the first place, so I completely understand what emotional consternation does to our rational side. Similar end—a worker in a nearby shop noticed the camera, took it in and left a note on the bench telling me where to come for it. It was two days before I even realized I'd lost the camera and went back to the bench!"

Greg Bolarsky: "You should be a mystery or thriller writer. Excellent job of creating narrative tension, with a satisfying outcome...just don't do that again! You also make me feel much better about my own ever-more-frequent senior moments."

Benjamin Marks: "I can feel the sweat cooling off my forearms having read how the story ended. Hate losing stuff! Brings to mind the Elizabeth Bishop poem, 'One Art.' Perhaps I should be quoting All's Well That Ends Well instead: 'Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie / Which we ascribe to heaven.'"

J D Ramsey: "For many years one of the great pleasure of the Jersey Shore was homes with outdoor showers. It’s hard to explain the charm—maybe it’s just taken a shower where the sense of the outdoors is so freeing, even though you are typically in a wood-sided enclosure with no roof. I’ve never heard anyone who has tried who didn’t find it wonderful. (And you can throw the kids fresh from the sandy beach in there before they get in the house.)"

Kristine Hinrichs: "What great news that your camera was found. One thing I do with my cameras is to make sure that the first shot on any card is of my business card, figuring it can’t hurt and might help. Now that there are Air Tag clones the size of a credit card, we can hope that soon there will be tags small enough to stick on a camera—or they integrate the tech with the SD card."

Bob Keefer: "Wow! Your camera experience denotes very good photographic karma. I'm (mildly) surprised you don't have your gear insured (but of course, I don't either). Very cool your camera survived two days in an urban setting. The closest I've come to that was about 20 years ago. I was working with a photographer on a set of newspaper stories in the eastern Oregon desert country, with a local postmaster as our guide. After three long days together, we all had a late lunch at the little café in tiny Fields, and then set off on the 300-mile drive back home to Eugene. When we got back to the city that night, Larry, the photographer, realized he had left his camera bag full of gear at the café. I told him I thought all would be all right, though I didn't fully believe that myself. But when I called the postmaster the next morning, he said the café owner had given the camera bag to a cowboy driving north to Burns, where the post office was. The cowboy dropped it off with the postmaster, who packed it carefully and shipped it to us in Eugene, no charge.

"Sometimes life offers grace."

James Coleman: "My heart stopped when I read you'd lost your Sigma and I'm so glad it was found. As someone who hardly goes anywhere without one, I've found constantly carrying a camera makes me less likely to forget it as I've grown accustomed to their weight on my shoulder. The times when I've almost lost it were always after I'd gone without it for a spell. I'm convinced, though, it's only a matter of time before I lose my phone. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten out of my car and left it in the phone holder. Congratulations on your recovery!"

Farhiz Karanjawala: "Well, we're two lucky as hell blokes."

Mike replies: That's a lovely story, Farhiz, and well written and presented. I enjoyed that, even if it struck a little too close to home.

John Shriver: 'Well, DSI is around the corner from Sancta Maria, but it's in Belmont. Belmont is quite 'tony,' so I'm not surprised your camera was safe there. Interesting that you had no comments on making a road trip in an EV."

Mike replies: Only because I didn't. I took the older ICE Acura. I've only had the EV a few days and I don't feel I'm ready to make my first long trip yet. I plan to make a few shorter trips first, after I get, ahem, my apps in order and have made a few fillups at DC Fast Chargers (the first try was a disaster—I got charged $69 for 30 minutes' charging). I'm not even up and running on the MyNissan app yet, so I have a ways to go.  

James Bullard: "You have my sympathy regarding your mother's condition. My mother spent the last six or seven years of her life in a supportive living facility. She had progressive dementia and, for the final four years, did not know me. When I would go to visit, she would repeatedly ask who I was. Such things make for an awkward end to one of our most important life relationships. Take care of yourself."

Mike replies: Indeed. And thank you, James. My mother is considered to be nonverbal, but I got several dozen words from her. Grateful for little gifts.