The Canon AE-1 Manual, and how my life changed forever.

A short essay on a single phonebook that means a lot to them and why. Summited to Brown Owl Press.

I guess the year was 1983. It was just sitting on the side table. The Canon AE-1 camera and manual. I guess my dad was looking something up. I don’t know why I picked it up, but I did, not knowing that this book would change my life forever. Lucky for me he left his camera bag on the floor too. I remember the smell opening it. I started flipping thru this simple but very instructive manual. I was holding the camera thinking that I probably shouldn’t be, but I was. I inspected the camera as the beginning user I was, but I seemed instantly familiar with it, as my dad took it everywhere. “The slightest movement of your body during shutter release may cause blur in the picture” the manual explained, with an illustration of a woman that reminded me of my mother. I lifted the camera to my face as the example showed and to this day when I see photographers holding their camera with the hand over the lens to focus it maddens me. Lucky for me the manual talks about just that. “Note: There is, of course, no one correct way to hold the camera. Experiment to find the most suitable way to you. Select a method that provides comfort in addition to stability. It may help to practice in front of a mirror.” Well, I’m glad they did mention this, as I remember viewing myself pretending to hold a camera in the mirror for many years to come. As I flipped through reading the manual, the first picture I remember I came across is a photo of blurry pigeons. This pigeon photo has haunted me throughout the years. It was and to this day is the perfect description of freezing motion in my mind. I use a version of this idea when I teach photography. The images were very well thought out; I imagined being the photographer and what it would be like to travel the world and take photos of pretty women and skiers, turkeys, bullfighters, and fireworks. I never ended up traveling the world, but photography has been part of my life since this day. With the advent of all the technology that surrounds photography, it’s fun to see these cameras in person. Photography with the older analog cameras are now back for what I hope is not just nostalgia. The images in this manual are unassuming and instructive, but they formed what has become my eye in photography, and every once in a while I make the visit back to what was my beginner manual in making art.

PDF of the AE-1 Manual I found when I was 10.
http://stevespages.com/pdf/canon_ae-1p_camera.pdf