Nostalgia

Mom's camera strap

This evening I came home to my most recent eBay find - a vintage woven camera strap circa 1975.  Ebay's a super dangerous place for me to spend any amount of time because they have freaking everything and with enough time I can usually find the exact thing I'm looking for.

Back story ... A couple of weeks ago when at an art get-together (ie we met via social media, everyone brings something to work on and drinks way too many mimosas) I saw a camera strap sent me down memory lane.  When I was a kid my mom had an older manual 35mm Nikon with a strap just like the one pictured.  And it was that camera where I truly first became acquainted with photography in a non-point-and-shoot way.  As many of us experienced, in the 7th grade we were expected to create a bug collection.  Being the softy that I am I simply couldn't bring myself to kill a variety of bugs and impale them on pins for something so trivial as a school project.  Well that and I didn't like the noise / feeling of the pin crunching through the poor sad bug.  So my science teacher, who was well versed in my eccentricities, having taught tutored me in advanced math two years prior, and I came to a compromise.  I would make a collection but not of dead bugs.  Instead I trapped subjects, took scale photos of them, and covered my bug-board in pictures.

Anyways, seeing the camera strap sent me hunting through the vaults of eBay until I found a purveyor of vintage camera straps.  Not bad for $12.   Unfortunately this story, like many of those involving anything to do with my family has a somewhat sad slant on it.  In my excitement to share my find-and-buy I told my younger sister.  Her response was "Oh good!  Now I can use the strap Mom gave me without feeling bad about it!"  Reminded once again of my place in the family hierarchy.  Check.

visit Samantha Byrnes' gallery online...