My history with cameras goes back quite a few years to my junior high school days.
If I鈥檓 doing my mental math right, I think my fascination with them started when I was 12 years old and began going to Outlook High School.聽 At the time, you could sign out a video camera from the library for a night, or if you timed it right and opted to sign it out on a Friday afternoon, then you had it for the entire weekend.聽 What a score that was.聽 If you had plenty of blank VHS tapes, you had free reign and the possibilities were endless.
I can remember making little stop-motion animation clips and staging full-blown wrestling matches with my younger brother, and even scribbling out a 鈥渟cript鈥� and shooting a news program with a few friends.
Later, our school class assignments allowed my friends and I to get creative and we would typically decide to make video projects.聽 We were certainly no Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg, but we were having fun and flexing some creative muscles, which didn鈥檛 go unnoticed by our teachers and more often than not produced some solid grades and fair praise for going 鈥渙utside the box鈥� when approaching the assignment.
By the time I鈥檇 approached my last few months of high school, I had my own video camera that was almost glued to my hand the way everyone鈥檚 smartphone is glued to theirs today.聽 I remember grabbing it from my locker one day in April when it was announced over the intercom that students needed to get out of the school immediately because someone had called in a bomb threat.聽 I knew I just had to document the moment.
Looking back on it now, was my past trying to foreshadow my future career鈥�?
A few years later, when I did find myself at The Outlook, I became acquainted with the Nikon DSLR camera that鈥檚 still here to this day.聽 I believe it鈥檚 a 2002 model, and it鈥檚 been here longer than all three of us.聽 It鈥檚 my go-to camera for sports like track & field, football and basketball.聽 Aside from that, I鈥檝e had a trusty little Canon Powershot ELPH 300 for nine years that鈥檚 never left my side.聽 All those great landscape and sunset shots you may have seen on my Facebook page, Derek Ruttle Photography?聽 That鈥檚 the work of my four-inch little buddy.聽 It鈥檚 been over the border with me, across the West Coast and back, taken pics with a handful of celebs, and helped capture life in this part of the world.
But it鈥檚 time for it to retire.
This past Sunday, I brought home a brand-new camera, a Canon Powershot SX70 HS.聽 It鈥檚 something of a hybrid between a point-and-shoot and a pro-grade DSLR.聽 I knew the model I wanted, I did the research and read the reviews, and I wasn鈥檛 taking no for an answer and settling on something else.
I鈥檓 looking forward to learning all the ins and outs of my new camera gear.聽 My oh my, the eye-grabbing landscapes, vistas, and scenery that this bad boy鈥檚 gonna capture!
But when I do go out and start setting up that perfect shot, what am I going to see?聽 The world鈥檚 changed a lot since I was a kid.聽 We鈥檙e in the midst of a viral pandemic and walking on eggshells in the hope that we鈥檒l finally turn that one corner that spells the eventual end of this unprecedented time in our lives.聽 If that鈥檚 not enough, violence and racial divisions are rocking the world, especially after the horrific death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
So, when I start to frame that shot, what am I seeing?聽 Am I seeing through the eyes of a Canon or a cannon?聽 Joy, happiness, and fulfillment, or sadness, despair, and darkness?聽 Is it truly up to me as the guy behind the lens, or will forces collaborate to paint a picture of a world more fragile than ever right now?聽 Maybe it鈥檚 both, at least for the time being.
To this day, I have a few handfuls of photos from 20+ years ago that captured a time in my life where the world wasn鈥檛 quite so dark to me yet.聽 I can鈥檛 say I was all that innocent in my teen years 鈥� my friends and I know where some bodies are buried, so to speak 鈥� but we were still technically kids and there was still a decent blanket of vulnerability and naivety over us. 聽I pull those old photos out from time to time, or else I bring them up on my Facebook page since I鈥檇 managed to scan them digitally about a decade ago.聽 I look at them and smile.
These days, I don鈥檛 know what my camera will capture from one day to the next.聽 That鈥檚 always been par for the course in this job, but in the world we live in right now, I鈥檓 split between *wanting* to capture the good and the uplifting, but *knowing* there鈥檚 always the chance of capturing the bad and the melancholy.
I鈥檓 trying really hard these days to make sure it鈥檚 not the latter.
For this week, that鈥檚 been the Ruttle Report.
