Kurt of Gerolstein: Camera and I ...

My shelves are testament to the fact that my father loved photography. My Nana too. Her sister had a photographic studio for a dozen years in Vienna (Hietzinger Hauptstrasse 34B) in the 1920s and 1930s in conjunction with a lady named Berta Schönikel. The family took some very lovely pictures, mostly of mountains (afterwards, they would quarrel about which mountain was which), family, and of their various European travels and, well, I haven’t had the heart to throw them out …

Great-grandmother Marie and Onkel Max in Silesia

The camera with which dad took his photos survives too. It’s a lozenge shaped case which opens to display bellows and a square wire viewfinder …

I didn’t follow the hobby. I looked at Dad’s photos, and oh heavens … slides (those grim fifth-time-round slide evenings!) and mostly left the box brownie I’d been given in the cupboard. The old Remington typewriter with its üs and äs (what were they for?) was much more my style…

I travelled several time around the world. Alison took photos, Barry and Rosie took photos, but I … well, I just got photographed. When we lived in France, Ian took the odd photo …

Pacific Night on the 'Northern Star'

I was in my fifties when I bought my first racehorse. Davey Crockett. And suddenly, I wanted a camera. Digitals had just become popular. So I Bought one. And started taking horse pictures like other people do babies and cats.

The Soldier Fritz at 10 weeks

Then little Minnie arrived in our life…

And so I became a confirmed old photographer and likely to remain so.

When, after Ian’s death, I returned solo to ship-travel and to Europe, my trusty camera went with me, and gave me hours of enjoyment. Nights aboard the Bank Line Ships swapping USB sticks of the day’s adventures with my fellow passengers. Now that you didn’t have to take a reel of film to the chemist, this was enormous fun …

Kurt in Tahiti

And then, just as I left Europe to return to New Zealand, my camera died. Distress! Where should I find another? When we changed planes at Singapore I wandered desultorily through the duty free (huh!) shop to see what the new trends in camera were. No, I told an anxious little assistant, I’m not buying. Just surveying the field. Half an hour later I walked away with a nice little Fuji apparatus and more (free) accessories than I could carry. Most of which are still in a drawer.

Fuji and I travelled the world together for five or six years. We photographed all the pictures of this blog and thousands more. We photographed more horses (and now we have the same queries as Dad did with the mountains) and the kitties and our vast family of peacocks.

I noticed Fuji’s age showing a bit. He didn’t zoom as he used to. He had to be shaken a bit to open his lens. And one day everything went magenta. Last week we visited Woody Head, NSW, one of the prettiest spots I’ve discovered in years, and Fuji went diligently to work … some lovely shots of .. oh a pelican flying across the sun! And the wonderful solider crabs carrying blue meringues on their backs…

Back at The Cove I plugged Fuji in, and … WHERE ARE MY SOLDIER CRABS? The pelican and the sunstar …? I guess Fuji’s days of direct-into-the-sun photos were gone. His little heart just gave out. I nearly wept.

Fuji's last foto. And he missed the pelican!

Paul diagnosed the cure as an instant remarriage, and the next day we headed for Yamba’s little photoshop. How on earth would I chose a new camera with out the aid of an Asiatic assistant? It was easy. Yamba is little. The shop is very little. It had two cameras, the cheap version and then the more expensive version with a 25x zoom.

Yesterday, Paul and I took Canon SX620HS (‘Canon’ for short) for a walk .. Main Beach, Pippi’s café, Pippi Beach … and gave him his first lessons. And here are the results … not bad for a first collaboration!