A Kodak Moment: a sentimental moment worth preserving with a photograph.

When I was a child, Kodak had an advertising campaign wrapped around the words, “A Kodak Moment.” On television Kodak ran commercials that featured pics of family events, or cute babies that ended with the phrase, “A Kodak moment.” Watching one of those commercials made me feel good about life. The advertising campaign was highly successful. In fact, it was such a successful campaign that whenever one would view or take a picture of friends or family members someone would say, “That is a Kodak moment.”

While most people think of a Kodak moment as a sentimental photo of a person or people over the course of time I use the term for my photography differently. I think to myself, it is a Kodak moment when viewing one of my photos that I know is not that good, but I still can’t delete it. Something inside me has an emotional attachment to the photo. It is weird, it doesn’t have to be a good photo, or even a photo of a special event or special person. It can be a photo of a thistle, or piano keys, or a run down building but it elicits emotions in me. I just don’t want to loose that emotional attachment I have to the photo.

I have now decided, from time to time, to share some of these weird Kodak moments with the world. Maybe in doing so, it will get some of you to think about some of your weird Kodak moments that you have not viewed for sometime.

In March of 2012, April and I still had a house in Casper, Wyoming. According to my journal April had started to show an interest in my photography. So, I got the brilliant idea, with camera in hand to take April downtown so she could take photos while I explained the basics of photography. I knew April would be self-conscious of taking photos with strangers passing her and maybe watching her. With that in mind, I decided we would walk the alleys and in so doing we would have privacy while she learned how to compose and the benefits of using various apertures.

I will never forget her concentration while looking through the viewfinder, or her smile while picture peeking. She was enjoying taking photographs. It was fun experiencing her reactions.

While April was photographing and I was lecturing about the joys of photography it dawned on me how taking photos of the town from the alley gave a total different perspective of the town. You saw a glimpse of the town history, graffiti, garbage, makeshift repairs and so on. In the alley there were no facades to hide the worts or age of the buildings. It was kind of fascinating. Doors and steps that once were used now were abandon. Walking those alleys you witnessed the underbelly of the buildings and town.

Once we got back to the house I post processed the photos and April for the most part loved the photos that she captured.

Today, looking back at those photos I laugh at my post processing. In the year 2012 HDR photography was becoming the new fad. While these photos are not truly HDR photos I post processed them to create the HDR look. I would say I kind of went overboard in doing so. Hey, remember, it was another time and another place. Fads come and go.

For those of you who are wondering the camera was a Nikon D7000 and the lens was a Nikkor 17 to 55mm f2.8 lens

There are about fifteen photos I kept from this photo outing. I randomly selected the photos posted here.

I hope you enjoyed this little Kodak Moment. Memories don’t have to be special to be precious. CLG