Down Memory Lane

I'll never forget my first camera: It was a Yashica Penta J. My father gave it to me when I was a kid, back in the early 60s. I don't know why Dad decided to get me a camera, much less a 35mm SLR. I don't recall asking for one or showing any sort of inclination towards photography, at least during that early period of my life. (I can't ask him now as he's gone.) But, whatever his reasons were, that's what he did.

I'm not really sure if he actually purchased the camera. My Dad was first-generation Italian and he knew some interesting guys. You know, some of those "It fell off a truck" kinds of guys. Not that my Dad was one of them but he ran in more than a few circles. My Italian relatives -- I come from a big Italian family (is there any other kind?)-- included its share of, uhhh... interesting and colorful characters. Making the family even larger, some of my relatives weren't (technically) relatives. They were close friends of my Dad or of my uncles or cousins. (I had first cousins who were about the same age as my Dad.) I think I was in my early teens before realizing some of my "uncles" weren't actually my uncles.

Back then, learning photography was very different than today. There were no "automatic" modes on 35mm SLR cameras. I believe it was Canon's AE1 (which debuted in the mid-70s and was a camera I also shot with for some years) that first introduced a 35mm SLR camera controlled solely via a built-in Central Processing Unit (CPU) and made SLR photography available to beginners and amateurs (who weren't interested in, or had the desire or patience to learn, the technical side of photography) at reasonable prices. Being a photographer back then meant you needed to learn about photography--apertures and shutter speeds and all that--if you wanted properly exposed images. This was, of course, way before digital so mistakes were costly and not discovered until your pictures came back from the processing lab.

Photography quickly became of great interest to me and it continues to be so to this day. Whether or not my first camera actually cost my Dad anything became moot has he was constantly reaching into his pocket to pay for processing. I think there were a few times he wondered how good of an idea it might have been to give me a camera. In retrospect, that Yashica Penta J, in many ways, represented one of the greatest gifts I ever received from my Dad. Thanks, Dad!