COMMONPLACE CORNER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27568, 9 December 1950, Page 10

COMMONPLACE CORNER

rpHE BRIEF TASTE of summer which was experienced this week should serve as a reminder to intending noliday makers that their cameras have been out of use for a good many months. For the camera is a seasonal instrument so far as most of us are concerned. The greater. part of the year it is tucked away in the third drawer from the top with the bathing suit, shorts and sports shirts. Then comes the holiday season, and proud owners indulge in a sort of photographic frenzy. After the moth holes in the bathing suit have been darned, a roll of film is hastily packed into the camera and the sun’s beaming invitation to the beach is accepted. The amateur shutter clicker is interested almost exclusively in pictures of people and he (or she) loses no opportunity of recording for posterity such gripping scenes as dad snoring on the beach, mum cutting sandwiches, or tightpacked groups flashing artificial smiles towards the lens.

The camera, as everyone knows, is an extremely useful device. It can sort out horses at the finishing post, bring out the beauty of babies on bearskin rugs, and even do clever things such as taking pictures of plain subjects and making them look attractive. But—and here’s the rub—it has to be in the right hands. With the wrong person pressing the wrong gadget and occasionaly forgetting to wind the spool, it can be the means of producing staggering and hairraising pictures. The horrid results of inefficient photography have an alarming effect upon those whose doleful task it is to develop and print holiday snapshots.

In the early stages, that is. With tht passage of time these people develop a cynical outlook, and even worldshattering events fail to move them. Hour after hour, day after day, they live among a welter of disembodied heads, beheaded bodies and out-of-focus family favourites. If their finer .feelings become dulled, who shall blame them? , „ „ . ' Human frailty being what it is there is no hope of substantially improving this situation. Not even free books

of instruction could prevent the annual orgy of photographic mayhem. The only hope is that' some day some genius will produce a machine which automatically adjusts itself to all variations of light, focuses itself and sharply raps the user's knuckles every time he tries to click the shutter without having every intended detail showing in the lens. A. G. P.