I might want to go back some day

I finally bought a “real” camera. Like, not the one in my phone. I got it to capture the beauty I see around me every day—before it’s all gone.

I’m not very well traveled, but in my twenties I took off solo to live and work in Japan for a while, running through loads of 35mm film. I’ve got pictures of the famous Kinkaku-ji temple in Kyoto, those crazy crosswalks in rush-hour Tokyo, and Mount Fuji from the window of the bullet train, sure—but I also have the old samurai quarter in the historic town where I lived, my comically matchbox-sized apartment, and the ancient temple tucked away in the mountains where I saw an actual mummy.

The resulting thick photo albums are here to take me back anytime I’m craving a Japan fix. The island of Honshu could disappear into the sea and I’d still have it packed away in a big green Rubbermaid storage box.

Most of the photos I’ve taken in the smartphone era, admittedly, have yet to make it that far—they’re still floating around in The Cloud, accessible only via screen. A good camera might not change my storage methods, but that’s not important right now. Capturing memories is job one. As with most things in my life, organization can wait.

My trusty phone camera has served me well, but not without limits. Every time I’d step out on the porch on a clear, cool night to photograph a giant full moon, and every time I’d try to get a good shot of snowy Mount Shasta standing watch at the top of I-5, I’d curse my phone’s inadequacy and remind myself it was time to start camera shopping. I’d research online for hours at one of my various desk jobs (sorry, employers) until I’d find the perfect product, fully intending to buy it “one of these days.”

Then came the horrific fireand-brimstone summer of 2021. Added to the gut-wrenching losses of recent years, the Dixie Fire and its brutal cohorts have made it seem like every bit of forest I’ve enjoyed making memories in has either been torched out of existence or is in danger of going up next. Never mind the full moon—I’ve spent the summer peeved that my phone couldn’t capture the eery red sun coming up through the smoke.

I wanted those images from my time in Japan because, chances are, I won’t make it back there. Now I know it’s also likely I won’t get another chance to see some of the tall, sheltering forests to the east, north, and west of this valley that I took for granted as a constant, reassuring presence all my life. The trees are burning. The lakes are drying up. I want a record of all this beauty I’ve been so lucky to see, to grow up in, to call home.

Just as it goes with love, I’ve found that material objects of desire also tend to make themselves available to me when

I’m not actively on the hunt. I hadn’t even started looking yet when the exact entry-level DSLR model I’d decided upon months ago—then forgotten about—popped up a couple of weeks ago on Facebook Marketplace. Great condition, fair price. It was time.

I drove over to one of Chico’s most Chico-ey neighborhoods (tree-lined, slightly bohemian, lovely), handed a nice Birken-stocked woman a few bills, and carried my new digital friend to the car with the same delighted care I’d have given a new puppy.

I’m a total novice at “real” photography, but the camera feels good in my hands. I’m starting off in Auto mode, but certainly the fine instructors at YouTube University can get me up to speed on more advanced settings. I’ll need to know about photographing sunrises and sunsets, mountains and trees, clouds and stars, lakes and oceans, animals and people. I can’t let it all disappear; I might want to go back someday.