The Outcast

The Outcast

Jonathan Dickenson State Park, Florida

Nikon F, Tamron 135mm f2.8 lens, Kodak Kodachrome II film

(Click to enlarge)

 

This picture is important to me. It was my first photograph to give me a sense of having caught something of what I wanted to say with my photography. It was the beginning of my ability "to notice things," as I wrote here.

It was Thanksgiving weekend, 1969. My family and I were camping at Jonathan Dickinson State Park on Florida's southeast coast with a group of other teachers and friends from Miami's Florida Christian School. That was the setting.

I had been enthusiastically snapping away for a little over a year by this time, first with a cheap Kodak Instamatic 126 camera I got when Donny was born, then working my way up through somewhat better cameras until, at the beginning of the 1969-70 school year I got my first good camera -- a Nikon F and a pair of Tamron lenses to shoot football and school activities, including photos for the yearbook.

I made quite a few photos that weekend, mostly of family and friends. But something about this scene at the waterfront caught my eye, although I couldn't have told you at the time just what it was that appealed to me. Now, I see it as a metaphor for a human condition.

The camera, as I said, was my prized Nikon F with the Tamron 135mm lens; the film was Kodak's Kodachrome II with an ISO (then called ASA) of 25. Hopelessly slow in this digital age, yet used to create incredible photographs and still considered by many to have been the finest film ever made.

Photograph and text copyright 2021, David B.Jenkins

I post each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

 

Tags: photography, Dave Jenkins, Nikon F camera, Tamron lens, Kodak Kodachrome II film, Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Florida, Miami, Florida Christian School Instamatic