DREAMS

By Dick Kraus
Newsday
Staff Photographer (retired)

All Hell was breaking loose, around me. I struggled with the cumbersome 4 X 5 Speed Graphic as I slid a cut film holder in place and pulled the dark slide. I cocked the Compur Shutter on the front of the bellows and popped an M-5 flash bulb into the Graphlex Flash Gun. The action around me was happening in real time. But, my efforts to get prepared to shoot were occurring in slow motion. I would only have one chance, possibly two if I was fast enough, to get this shot as the police hustled my subject through the assembled press and onlookers. (It would be many years before I would enjoy the mobility and quickness of a 35 mm camera with a motor drive and a fast electronic flash.)

I quickly set the zone focus using the footage scale on the camera bed and brought the heavy camera up to my eye. I sighted through the wire sports finder and saw that my moment of truth was fast approaching. I was being bumped and jostled by other photographers trying to get a clear view but I steadfastly held my ground and elbowed anyone who tried to push his way in front of me. They were now in my pre-set zone of focus and I hit the solenoid button on the back of my flashgun. I heard my shutter click and took note that the flashbulb fired. But in the brief flare of my flash, I saw that the man had turned his head and my shot was ruined.

I quickly ejected the burnt bulb and shoved another into the socket and cocked the shutter in the same motion and fired again. He was still in my focus zone and this time I saw the front of his face as he glared into my camera lens. Great shot!

But, wait a minute! Goddam it! Had I turned the film holder to get that second shot? Or had I double exposed the first shot? Son of a bitch! I ran the scenario through my head trying to relive the actions but I couldn’t remember putting the dark slide back into the holder, taking it out of the camera, turning it and re-inserting it and pulling the slide before shooting that second shot.

I felt my heart sink into my nauseous stomach as I watched my quarry disappear into the crowded street. There was no way I could catch up to him for another try. And now I had to return to my paper with a double exposed sheet of film and try to explain to my Photo Editor why I had screwed up
.
Suddenly, I sat up. Sweat was pouring down my face and my heart was beating 300 to the minute. It was dark and I was in bed. I had been dreaming. It was another of those anxiety dreams. I had had many of them in my lifetime. Strange that I was having the Speed Graphic Dream now. I had been using 35mm cameras for many, many years and dreaming that I couldn’t get the film casette into my camera fast enough while the picture of a lifetime unfolded in front of me. Or I was trying to change lenses and the bloody thing refused to seat while flames leaped around me and people jumped from windows and I couldn’t make a shot.

When I was a kid, I would dream of being chased by bullies and my feet would refuse to move. I would get that same nauseous feeling and elevated heart rate as I tried to force my leaden feet to move me away from danger. I’m sure that there is a scientific explanation for that phenomena. A psychiatrist might connect that with low self-esteem, brought about by lack of confidence in my physical prowess when I was young. Only to be replaced by my fear of not being able to perform my professional skills when I matured into a newspaper photographer.

Why do you suppose that happens? Have any of you readers been plagued by those kinds of dreams? And, why am I dreaming the camera dreams now? I have been retired for over a year.

Dick Kraus

newspix@optonline.net