A sad sad story

I went to a flea market today. A man was selling some old cameras including a nineteen-forty-something 8mm motion film camera that so small I could palm it and you would not know it was in my hand. The lens (and by lens I mean the entire mechanism, not just the glass) had a diameter of about two thirds of a dime. It was amazing. And adorable. I was admiring it and the man came over and first told me that it was too old to be used to take pictures, and then told me that he wanted twenty-five dollars for it. I had been thinking more along the lines of fifteen (though, of course, at this point in my life money has a pretty inflated meaning for me, so even fifteen is a lot), so I did not purchase the camera. I got to thinking later, though, that it must be sad for a thing like a camera to become something that is worth more to a person operating as a collector as an unwanted collectible than to a person operating as an artist as a tool for creation.

I hope, of course, that someone who wants to shoot 8mm finds it and buys it and loves it. I don't want it to spend any part of its productive life not living up to its potential.