Photography Enthusiast

A hot shoe is a mounting point on top of a camera to attach a flash unit. Before cameras were made with built-in flash, hot shoe technology was state of the art. The evolution of 35 millimeter cameras began with no flash feature, then flash attachments, and later built-in flash.

Herschel bought a Canon 35 millimeter SLR (single-lens reflex) camera in 1956 while in Japan. He's taken thousands of pictures throughout the years with his camera that was built before the hot shoe development.

He's captured the essence of special times, places, and events on film and has many albums of photos that provide visual images of years past.

A couple years ago the 1956 era camera malfunctioned due to a part failure. Herschel shipped the camera to a repair shop in Charlotte, North Carolina to get the part replaced to make the camera functional again. A couple weeks later, he received a card in the mail from the repairman which read that the camera was not worth the cost to repair it.

Hershel telephoned the repairman and said, "Let me assign worth to the camera. You fix the camera and send me the invoice." The camera is repaired and continues taking photos.

Don't let this incident cause you to think that Herschel is an "old timer" and unreceptive to new technology. I believe, in part, that I had influence on him getting a computer, signing up for Road Runner Internet, and setting up an email address. He engaged the services of a tutor to come to his home and teach him about computers. He now uses Internet, Google, Wikipedia, email and URL.

My friend has fussed at me a couple times for introducing him to computers and cyberspace where he goes from one interesting and informative site to another and consumes too much of his time.

Herschel has written many words and has made notes about philosophical thoughts over the years. Some notions were dreamed up by him, others he read somewhere, and still more were modified by him after hearing them on radio or elsewhere.

Here are examples:

"If good things lasted forever would we appreciate how precious they are?"


"Everyone can see where their mind takes them."


"Hope is the last thing that dies in man."


"To feel that one has a place in life solves most of the problem of contentment."


Herschel secured the services of a calligrapher to write these words on special paper. He has given them as bookmarks to family and friends on special occasions. One is in the picture below.

The top picture are flowers around Herschel's home and his dog, Pepper, is in the picture below.
Herschel captured these images by using his favorite camera.

Return here on Monday, September 25 for an update.

Have a good day!