Eileen Douglas

My digital camera. I never leave home without it.

It never used to be that way.

Taking photographs has always been part of my life. I love to shoot and always have. With a film still camera, however, I would never lug it along, every day, all day long, no matter where I went. That was for vacations. Special events. Birthdays, graduations, kid’s school plays and parties.

But like others, digital photography has changed my life. And, in my case, it means these days I always, always have it at hand. Tucked inside my purse, batteries charged, extra memory cards at the ready. You never know when you will see something. The last thing I want is to kick myself that something wonderful, something fleeting I might never see again, crossed my path and I didn’t capture it. I never want to say, with regret, what a great shot. If only I had a camera!

With the digital camera I always have it handy. I am always armed and ready. And because of that I now have photographs I never would have had.

In fact, it seems the best are the ones you don’t plan. Could never have expected.

All my life, in much of my work and my personal being, the mindset has been --- set a goal, work to make in happen. I’ve done enough in my time and with my time that’s been planned out. Under pressure. On deadline. This is different. This is very Zen. And it’s the digital camera that makes it happen. Here, the idea is not to go out looking. The idea is to be struck. To be struck by whatever I may encounter. To be living my life and along the way see what crosses my path, see what hits me, and then, because I’m ready with that camera in my bag, spring into action. Nail it. I may carry the camera around for a month and see nothing, then turn a corner and find something that makes me click off a hundred shots. Because the camera is always ready, I am always ready.

Once I have these shots, they are my treasure, like jewels. When I look at them, as I do over and over again, I take such pleasure knowing that I have them.

And I’m talking camera here. Not camera phone. From the quality of the photograph to the quality of the experience of taking the photograph, it’s the pleasure of the click of the camera that does it.

Morning light streams in through my window at sunrise, or the setting sun stands in silhouette against the evening sky, and I will grab the camera and shoot. Clouds frame up in odd shapes at twilight and I will click away. Now I always take the window seat on plane rides, so I can snap to my heart’s content. Riding as a passenger on a car trip, mist turns trees on a riverbank into a dreamscape and I will capture it.

What a happy surprise to find the moment you lift off from JFK the sun is splashing golden light over Manhattan and with the camera in hand your prize is the island below dazzling like an impressionistic painting.



Walking the city, I may stumble across a scruffy looking man playing a saxophone in Central Park, a crowd stopped for a light casting haunting shadows down Fifth Avenue, a dog whose owner has slapped on a pair of “meant for people” sunglasses on a bright summer morning.

Heading home one day I looked up to see a once in lifetime sight --- magician David Blaine stuck inside a glass tank of water surrounded by a crowd of gawkers outside Lincoln Center. Thank goodness I had the camera.

Passing children playing night games around a lamp embedded in a sidewalk in Mexico, strange illuminations made them look ethereal. And I have the photo to show it.

All of them shots I would otherwise not have. That’s the digital difference.

Out to dinner on a summer weekend at the beach, I always stick the camera in my pocket. There, where the shore meets the sky and sea, dinnertime is the time of day when the sunsets are glorious. Not everyone around me feels as I do. I jump up from the table so often, my dinner companions always beg me to stop. I never do. If I did, I would never have the couple strolling under purple clouds, the pier outlined against the blood-red sky, the boy on the bike hell bent for who-knows-where, his every motion filled with joy.

Sometimes, though, there are close calls. And then I nearly do kick myself.

Last month, after a long, frustrating plane ride and nerve-wracking wait for missing baggage, I arrived on a Caribbean island and set off in the rental car just as the sun was beginning to set. Coming over a hill I was struck by one of the most gorgeous sights I’ve ever seen. Streaks of sunbeams like thunderbolts from heaven were glinting off the sea and throwing the rocky islets on the horizon into relief, like dark hulking Chinese mountains. What a shot, I thought! How fabulous! Then, in horror I realized I had gone soft, violated my own rule. My camera was in my purse, all right. But my bag was tossed with the rest of the luggage into the pile in the back seat, while I was in the front seat, strapped in tight. With cars bearing down behind, we headed down the hill, with no place to stop and I slowly feared my shot slipping away with every second I delayed.

Like a maniac, I grabbed for the bag, just within reach, pulled out the camera, unvelcro-ed the case, waited an agonizing moment more for the shutter to click open, and shot. Yes! I got it! I was SOOO proud of myself. Because I didn’t let it go.