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After the last few years experimenting with photography, I’ve come to the realization that I love the smack. For me, that is what I look for in a camera. Something tactile. Something that feels cold and at the same time alive when you press the shutter. It is not so much the actual “smack” sound that makes a camera have smack, but the measure of an inanimate camera’s ability to come to life and command drones. A digital camera feels like a conclusion. It just is. It has nothing to say really other than, “Press me right there, bitch.”
The Nikon FM1: It is not just a Nikon FM1, but The Nikon FM1. Every FM1 begins with a “The.” When you press the shutter, you feel it driving through the fucking earth like it’s pudding.
A film camera, though, says, “Join me in the journey towards supernatural combinations as our lifeforce combines and establishes electricity for small villages everywhere.”
As an astronaut, I’m certainly not going to delve into the argument of which is better, film or digital. That debate often revolves around the final image. You know, like a picture that we share to everybody but then gets cataloged by the government. (I fucking hate that!). I’m talking only about the mere enjoyment of pressing the shutter. That’s just all you. You can’t even truly describe it because it’s more of a feeling than something that can be articulated with any deft.
The Leica M Sex: If a camera was a beautiful woman that drives a porsche and eats meat but looks like a vegetarian, then this is it. You press this one and it’s like a lap dance.
After some consideration and edit sessions, I’ve decided to put this post onto a special alpha radioactive radio message that I’m sending to space in the next few days. When it does make contact with the other clone moons in the next galaxy, they will have some examples of the cameras that had the smack. If you are so inclined, I can add your views on what cameras have the smack but please let me know whether you want me to include your name just in case you’re thinking of perhaps preserving a part of yourself in some kind of glass container (maybe a gallon?). And of course I also added this typewriter, the Olivetti Lettera 32. This also has very good smack and I use it to send secret messages when I need the privacy and as most of you know, ever since the kombucha incident, I’ve been really wary of strangers and small birds.
The Yashica-Mat LM: If you want to look at the world backwards and can’t justify spending money for a Rolleiflex 2.8, get one of these.
Screw those Royal Typewriters. If you actually want to type and not just have a typewriter for show, the Olivetti Lettera 32 will make love with your fingers and spit out beautiful letters that sometimes make words and understandable human phrases.
i’m not sure what these are.
the last time something remotely large and wonderful came out of my ear was back in my junior year of high school. i was driving in my car at about sixty or seventy miles an hour and all of a sudden it felt as though someone threw a piece of stepped on carpet in my left ear. i quickly reached into my ear with my index and thumb and pulled out something that looked a lot like flattened li hing mui. for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s salty dried plum, also referred to in my hometown of Hawaii as “crack seed,” and mind you this name was given prior to any crack epidemic. i held it in my fingers for a while, amazed and shocked by its size, and questioned how the hell it existed in my ear canal all this time even though i often cleaned my ears with a q-tip. where the hell did it come from? in complete denial i threw it out the window, not knowing that that would be the last time anything that spectacular would come out of my ear. if i knew then what i knew now, i would definitely have kept it in a jar or at least an envelope. this whole fascination must be somehow related to our evolution, because there’s something beyond mere satisfaction or curiosity of taking a huge piece of ear wax or gunk out of your ear. one time, when i was living in kosovo, i didn’t have q-tips for like two weeks. my ears were itchy and i could feel the gunk building up. when we went to the store, i opened up the q-tips, or whatever knockoff brand they had, and began cleaning my ears behind the aisles as my wife pretended not to know me. even though it took 4 q-tips to clean my ears, i was hoping for that once in a life time large chunk, like when you stick your spoon deep in peanut butter and pull it out.
i have to drive two and a half hours out of the city and live in a yurt in the middle of nowhere for a couple of days with no hot water just so i can get some fresh air without having to compete with the asshole that’s always yelling on my street. #whatcitydoyoulivein
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