The future
09/06/2014 Filed in: Photography
Just a photo of a boy with a ball in the late 1940s, however, I owe this young man an enormous debt of gratitude. He is responsible for what you see now. 65 years ago, when this photo was taken, who could have suspected where I would end up or what I would be doing.
But back to the kid in the photo. He managed to escape the steelmills of Sheffield by enlisting in the army. This took him to a small town on the English Welsh border. After being posted to the south of England, the south of Wales, and then Germany he came back to this small town, but lived across the border inside Wales. While in Germany he bought a camera a Canon FP which he later gave to me in exchange for a point and shoot. It was my first SLR, although not my first camera, and before that he had instilled an interest in photography in me. Now, with the Canon, I suddenly had a whole new world open up in front of me. And he was always on hand to guide me through this new world.
In the same way that when you learn to cycle, you don't realise that your parents are not holding onto the seat anymore because you're too busy looking where you're going, now is when I realise how important he was in sending me on my way into the world.
Thanks dad.