I had acquired an unusual photographic device
that was cylindrical and about three feet long. The long tube acted like a very long, very intense telephoto lens, while another lens which encompassed most of the camera’s length provided very wide panoramic views. The camera was held by both hands, one at each end; there were even indents and grips where the hands could take hold firmly. In order to take a picture, two buttons needed to be held simultaneously by each hand, one at each end of the long tube. The two methods for capturing a photo are as follows:
- Wide shot. Holding the camera length-wise perpendicular to my body, arms stretching to hold each end, I could look through the viewfinder in the center of the device. This allowed me to get a very wide shot of the scene in front of me, as the lens being used was very wide (about 2.5 feet). The resulting image actually encompassed more than the eye and its accompanying peripheral vision could see.
- Narrow, deep shot. The viewfinder used in the wide shot could be pulled out and rotated so that it was aligned parallel to the tube. I could use either end of the tube, as a lens was located on each side, to capture a very deep, almost three-dimensional shot. Again, both buttons needed to be employed to take a picture, so the camera had to be held like a bazooka on my shoulder so that the small, adjustable viewfinder could fit my face and eye comfortably.
I walked around the densely wooded area behind the house where I grew up in Western Massachusetts trying to find the most beautiful shots possible so that I could make use of my unique device. I stumbled across many other people in the forest taking pictures with much smaller, more primitive cameras, and they all gawked at my mammoth contraption. I used the wide shot to take some pictures of the sun setting behind the hills, while I used the narrow, deep shot to photograph railroad tracks. The sun setting behind the hills appeared to extend forever in both directions, and it even might’ve wrapped itself behind me. The photo I took of the railroad tracks also seemed to go on for eternity, as one foot into the distance appeared to be about twenty.
I returned home once the sun had set, only to realize that I had no idea how to develop the film. So I snapped the treasured device in half atop my knee and threw it in the fireplace. The smell of the camera burning was akin to the first rain shower in Springtime.
