15 Frames with the Canon Sure Shot (Autoboy) Tele
The Canon Sure Shot Tele was introduced on Oct 1986. It is a Automatic compact camera with 2 focal lengths: 40mm F2.8 and a 70mm F4.9. While most point and shoots come with zoom lens this is a bi-focal point and shoot and which make it a preference of mine especially with the 40mm F2.8.
The camera isn’t the most… compact point and shoot out there and has quite the interesting look and does exactly what you expect it to. Worth noting about the camera is the is it also has a Multi Exposure feature that I have yet to try, a very gimmicky soft filter, and exposure compensation. The version I have is the non-quartz date.
In my professional life is one such area that I have found myself to be more malleable to things I don’t necessarily agree with, just because these aren’t my decisions to make. The position I would currently hold doesn’t dictate the need for me to find hills to die on in hopes of proving my point. However, there are hills I am willing to die, there always are. It is important for me to discern which those are, why I am willing to die on them and what happens with the blowback. Decisions we all as adults, or even teenagers/young adults must make as we move into coming into our own.
Our individuality is predicated on this journey of finding things that we are passionate about. In passion however we shouldn’t lose our ability to be understanding. The ability to hear an argument different from our own, and not be argumentative but adaptable in finding points of the argument worth listening to given it is a logic-based argument. I am not sure where this is going...
The truth is that this conversation about speaking up for myself is rooted in a photo I took of someone and them retouching it, after the fact to make themselves look more appealing based on today’s “beauty” standards. While the image itself hasn’t been restructured to feel like a different photo all together, I think the subject retouching it to make themselves feel more beautiful is where I am conflicted. Should I feel uncomfortable that my image was taken and edited in that manner? Should I as the artiste have done my best to make sure that you feel more beautiful in these photos when I send them back to you? Did I do my best in my image making.
I do feel uncomfortable with it, but why? I feel uncomfortable because as a photographer I don’t want to change how you view yourself. I don’t want people to believe that beauty is based on the latest magazine issue, influencer post or anything of the sort. The beauty in our individuality should be based on the lives we have lived, the scars we have gained, the laugh lines we have amassed. These are the thing that make us all individually beautiful in my eyes. That being said these are how I want to view beauty but, doesn’t mean this is how everyone would have viewed beauty. I can’t dictate what someone needs to feel better about themselves and how they present themselves, because that the end of the day that is between you and no one else. My job can only be to present what I deem and find to be beautiful
I can only do so much to make anyone feel better about themselves. Nor was the ask to make them feel better about themselves, but it was to create amazing images and I did just that. If I were to change how you look to make you feel more beautiful then there is work that needs to be done…. I like the camera can only capture as you are, not as you would like to be.
For a second after I saw the images, I was conflicted that I should have done more. Maybe I need to introduce skin retouching in my photos to ensure that people see the best versions of themselves. I am completely aware of how I want my work to be viewed and that isn’t for everyone, but I know a good photo when I make one and I stand by the work that I do.
The silver lining here I think is that I needed this space to work through these thoughts, because while I could have spoken up for myself, I could have also misdiagnosed a situation and how I spoke up for myself. I could have added insult to injury, I could have got up on my hill and chose to die on it that you aren’t representing my work in the way that it was presented. The work is still the work, art that came secondary to that is based on vision. The issues here are more how I want my work to be viewed than they are how you view yourself and how you want to be seen publicly. I can only help the former, and that will always be what I present. The latter isn’t my battle to fight as I am already fighting myself with my own physical insecurities.
Until next time, peace and love.
P.S.- If you do happen to see this, please don’t take any of this as a knock on you. Don’t take it to mean we wont work together again. Take it as an item of conflict between myself and our society at large. A conflict of how we as people see ourselves based on outside noise. A conflict of… blue pill vs red pill.
