My Art History

My Camera is a Time Machine

I was 19 when I bought my first real camera. I had lucked into a job at a camera store, knowing almost nothing about photography, although I'd always bore a certain fascination. I went through the natural progression of owning a simple point and shoot to outgrowing it and purchasing my first SLR, a Nikon D40. It was prefect timing for me, I had recently made some much-needed, big, life-altering changes. I was just getting to know myself and I carried that camera with me everywhere, unknowingly documenting the most heartbreaking, magical, and miraculous year of my life. I had an inspired idea to wake up that weekend at 3 o'clock in the morning and drive 2 hours to the beach, just to see the sun come up and then drive back home (I was broke, so staying over night was out of the question). It was my first time using my first camera and it was the first sunrise I'd ever seen. Although I'm fairly certain the sun has been rising and falling my entire life and that from time to time it must have happened in my view, this was the first one I'd ever truly seen it, with clear vision. Here's a few of the photos I took that morning..

I took a picture of my Birkenstocks in each new place I went that year. It has since become a tradition of mine to drive out to the beach at 3 AM for no other reason then to see the sun rise. There is no more humbling feeling to me than watching a Divine act of Nature take place.

At some point on my photographic journey I switched from digital to film, some would call this regression, but I loved the endless possibilities it offered. It was exactly the creative push I needed at that time. I did all kinds of fun things with my film, I'd put it through the dishwasher before shooting it, I'd cover it with bleach, Sometimes I'd purposefully open the back of my camera for just a millisecond, exposing all the film. The photos below appear red because the film was turned inside out and shot through the "wrong" side of the emulsion, these are from my first roll of 35 mm..

I put my cameras down for a while, but my venture with SoulMakes has brought me back to them. I got a new camera this past weekend, I'm back to digital(but I'll never give up on film).

It had me feeling nostalgic, so I pulled out those old sunrise photos. I'm a sentimentalist. My camera is a time machine, the moments I capture with my camera are unbound by space, they become endless, without limitation, infinite. I can revisit them at any point. It's incredible to look back and recall the feelings and emotions captured in each one, to see how far I've come on this wonderful journey. I'm totally blown away the path I'm on and how things seem to unfold so perfectly when I get out of the way. SoulMakes is taking my life in a direction I never imagined possible. I'm excited, scared, overwhelmed and completely amazed! It seems only fitting that I would find myself with a brand new camera in my hands, to document this beautiful new adventure.

Hope you all are having a wonderful week!

Love,
MacK Mars

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