ASSIGNMENT #7: JAPANCAMERAHUNTER

UPDATE! I made it ! My submission got posted TODAY on JAPANCAMERAHUNTER.com !!!! (16.04.24)

My 7th assignment (from my mentor legend) was to submit my camera bag to the JAPANCAMERAHUNTER who features photographers' bag contents on his website!
Fun!
I didn't even know this existed! I am shy to say this, but it's true and how do you ever start somewhere knowing everything? You don't.

So I did this with great excitement and verve! I was very hopeful that my photo and story would make his site, but it was not selected. (This is why I'm only posting this now...for weeks I was hopeful that I could post that it "made it!" -alas- it did not.

In my bag? Lots of great stuff special to a f-i-l-m photographer. (YES, do not worry, I do digital too...it's just that film is so much more fun!) Anyway, the item that surprises most people in-my-bag is my blind cane. Often people mistake it for a tripod. LOL. In fact, it is a blind cane and YES, in fact, I still need it. When it's very bright, or there are patterns or textures on the ground that I am unfamiliar with, I still need it. I went blind a little over 2 and 1/2 years ago and even thought I never knew I would see again, surgeries saved my vision and I see (almost whole) again! After this experience, I picked up a camera and have found endless fascination and joy in translating my "vision" into images. I carry my blind cane folded up in a side-pocket of my backpack. Yes, a backpack is my camera bag and without thinking about this until after composing the photo and realizing it, this is probably the most outwardly recognizable feature to me. My blind cane. It means a lot to me.

The training of using the cane. The conscious choice to NOT BE AFRAID or be unjoyful as the reality unfolded. The realizations of -at the same time- how terrible and wonderful people could be...I LIKE that I carry it with me. It was a formative experience in which I knew I could still be my joyful self and be "scarily different." That certain senses took off and those capabilities have never left me, even after regaining almost full vision!

And one more decidedly fun note ** Rosenthal, the famous photographer who shot the also-famous Iwo Jima solders raising the flag photo? He was vision-impaired. In fact, the story goes, that when he went to enlist for WWII, in the marines - they would not let him in because his vision was too impaired! He said, "Ok. I'll just be a photographer then." (LOVE IT!) --AND BOY WAS HE A PHOTOGRAPHER!--

So, I din't make JAPANCAMERAHUNTER's website with the image of my bag below. But..
(1) It was a fun experience and assignment
and
(2) I learned about JAPANCAMERAHUNTER ! And now he has a new film out that I'm going to try (will report back later) !! And maybe, who knows, maybe later in life I will enlist his services to find a far and away rare film camera.