Another P&S story...
Back in the day, at her request, I bought my wife a P&S camera for Christmas. I'm guessing it was the late 90's. At the time I had zero interest in photography and really had no idea of what I was buying. Flash forward to 2009 and I've started shooting film in earnest and I start asking Nancy about whatever happened to the P&S camera I bought her. Her response, "I'm not sure, but it has to be around here somewhere...". Neither one of us could remember what make and model the camera was, but we both agreed that it was in a black bag with blue trim. Another four years pass with no sign of the camera until we decide to upgrade our internet service and a pending visit from a tech necessitated a major household reaming and the black bag with the blue trim magically appeared in the bottom of a walk-in closet. In the bag was a Minolta SuperZoom with a half-shot roll of film still in the camera and an unprocessed roll of film in its canister. A quick trip to CVS for a new battery and we were back in business. I finished the roll in the camera without much hope of getting anything decent out of it and ran another roll of fresh Kodak UltraMax400 through for good measure and I was off to get it all processed.
Based on the photos we got back from the lab, our best guess is that the camera had been put away sometime in 2001 - twelve years ago!
A candid of my departed grandparents with me in background, shot by my wife...long expired Kodak Max400, Minolta SuperZoom P&S, ca. 2001
My mother-in-law, who passed this last April. Also shot by my wife.
Ceiling of the Methodist Church in Red Lion, PA (Credit Nancy)
Coffee cup shot on one of the remaining frames in the camera on 12 year old expired Kodak Max 400 shot by me...
Another shot from the in-camera roll of my place of employ...
The feeling of getting these images back from the lab was indescribable and brought a tear to my eye. There's nothing particularly remarkable about these images in terms of their quality or composition, but I wouldn't trade my best photograph for that shot of my grandparents. There were other family gems on the expired roll in the canister and in the camera and Nancy and I are delighted to have them - we didn't find an old P&S film camera in that black bag with the blue trim, but a time machine.
Best to all,
Kevin