(365/4) This is the second camera that was passed down to me from my Grandfather, who had a real passion for photography. I showed an interest in photography at a very young age but my Grandfather believed that photography wasn't something to be tinkered in (as a child is wont to do)...if I was going to learn it, then I was going to LEARN it and then we'd talk about the camera and the nuts and bolts of shooting...later.
At 10yoa he presented me with a Kodak photography training manual and told me when I read it and had an understanding of it, he would give me my first SLR. I believe to this day he had to be laughing inside.
Aside from the FAA training manual on IFR Non-Radar, that I would tackle in my career some 12 years later, that Kodak manual was the most unbelievably incomprehensible text known to man. It took me nearly 2 years and at least 5 dozen cover to cover readings to "get it" or have it so memorized that I sounded like I knew what I was talking about even though I was still completely clueless.
This is the camera that cleared up the whole f-stop conundrum for me and the camera that followed me on my first years crossing the globe with the Navy. It was this camera and two other skill based activities (IFR Non-Radar, and surfing) that made me realize beyond a shadow of a doubt that with some things book "knowledge" alone of that something doesn't mean a "tinkers-damn" without the hands-on dirt and practice. (And somethings, like IFR Non-Radar, will make you certain of the miracle of divine providence, because nothing will make you pray harder...EVER! But that's a whole other thing. :-) )
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