“Okay, Farmer John, let’s see what you got.”
Setting aside my own cup of black coffee, I pulled the first camera from my bag and set it down in front of her.
“Good grief, where did you get this?” she asked as she picked it up to inspect it. “The world’s worst yard sale?”
“I told you. I found some cameras at my father’s house.”
“Right. Well, if you can call this piece of junk a camera. Next?”
She gave it back and kept her hand held out for another. I produced the second one from my bag, though it didn’t fare much better. At least she looked at it for a little longer, but in the end it was a reject as well.
“It’s just a cheap little point-and-shoot,” she said, handing it back to me. “And it needs charging. I guess you could use it for practice when you’re on your own, but not for our lesson time, okay? I’d rather let you use my camera than bother with that thing.”
Nodding, I returned it to the bag and pulled out the final choice, which was bigger and heavier—and much older and more banged up—than the first two. I thought it would get the biggest scorn of all, but instead, the moment I pulled it from its worn leather case, Lark nearly spit out her coffee.
With a gasp, she put down her cup and grabbed the camera from my hand.
“What the heck, Ty?” she practically screamed. “Where did you get this?”
I sat back, startled. “A cabinet in my dad’s study. Why?”
“Good grief, man, it’s a Leica. A classic Leica.”
She spoke as if I would know what that meant. I waited for an explanation, but she grew silent after that, every speck of her attention focused on the instrument in her hand.
Cradling it carefully, she examined the thing on every side, her fingers testing out each moving part, and then she held it to her eye and fiddled with it some more. Though I was eager to know what on earth she was so excited about, I was content to wait until she was ready to tell me. I just sipped my coffee and watched her put the device through its paces. When she was finally finished, the look she gave me was one of pure joy.
“You have no idea how awesome this is. I mean, it looks pretty banged up on the outside, but on the inside…Aw, man, I’m so jealous.”
“I take it this one is not a piece a junk?”
“Are you kidding? A lot of photographers consider this particular model to be one of the best cameras ever made. The thing’s a tank, man. I mean, sure, if it were mine and I had the money, I might get the prism resilvered, and maybe do a whole cosmetic makeover. But even without all of that, this is a true find. A real treasure. I can’t believe your dad had it tucked away in a cabinet.”
“Is it valuable?”
“Uh, yeah. Are you kidding me?”
“Then I have a feeling it belongs to Liz. She’s into photography too.”
Of course, the thought crossed my mind that this camera could have belonged to my mother—it certainly seemed old enough—but then I doubted that conclusion for several reasons. First, my parents probably wouldn’t have bought anything so expensive back then, no matter how much my mom enjoyed photography. Liz, on the other hand, had come from money, so that seemed far more likely. Second, my father would have had no reason to hang on to a camera of my mother’s after she died. He would have discarded it—along with everything else of hers that he didn’t need—because he had to move around so much. As a military man, he was meticulous about his possessions, super organized, and quick to get rid of anything once it was no longer necessary.
Just like he’d gotten rid of me.
Startled at the thought and how it had just popped into my mind like that, I looked away. For some things, I reminded myself, forgiveness was not a one-time deal. I had forgiven him years ago, but clearly it was time to do so yet again. As Lark returned her attention to the camera, I said a quick prayer, asking God to purge my heart of any resentment and to forgive me, just as I was determined to again forgive my father.
She continued to study the camera and then finally asked if she could keep it.
“Excuse me?”
“I’d like to take it home with me, give it a good cleaning, and load it up with film and batteries.”
“Oh. Sure. Just don’t forget to add the cost to my bill.”
She nodded, tucking the battered old classic into her own camera bag.
“We can both share my camera today. I was planning to focus on digital photography anyway, rather than film, so you could learn about composition.”
“Composition?”
She shrugged. “With some people, I might start elsewhere, like teaching the various camera settings and what they mean—exposure, depth of field, shutter speed—stuff like that. But for you, I think composition is the best place to begin. If you’ve never even held a camera before, you need to get a feel for the fun part first, the creative part. The technical stuff can follow later.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”