My dad has always had a casual interest in photography. Not so much on an artistic level exactly, but more so in a playful "I'm just going to shoot and see what happens" kind of way. Traditions like our annual family picture in Police Point Park or the random images that I've seen him take on holiday seem related to this endeavor. All things considered, in the mid-1970s he felt motivated to buy this relatively expensive Minolta XE-5 camera to pursue this hobby.
I recently adopted the camera as a decoration, but aside from needing new batteries it still works. That was actually the reason my dad had for retiring it. The camera had no auto-off and if you left it on the two small watch-type batteries would run out. They were costly to replace, and frankly, they still are. It's a good looking camera though, and there's a part of me that's tempted to buy the batteries and film and test it out. Maybe one of these days I'll actually do it, but I feel like I need a special project to make the effort worth it. Digital is too convenient, and it's spoiled us all.
On a day trip up to Drumheller, Andrea and I took a short detour to Horse Thief Canyon to check out an impressive overlook of the Badlands. Armed with a snapping T-Rex skull that I picked up at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, we shot a few pictures of our epic surroundings. What's not to love about a day of dinosaur inspired attractions? We had a lot of fun being local tourists on our short Alberta road trip.
Although it's become more difficult for all of the family to gather on a regular basis, on our way back from our trip to Canmore a couple of weeks ago we stopped in Calgary for a brief afternoon reunion. The meet-up was more meaningful than we realized at the time as my grandma has just been accepted into a nursing home and will be moving out next week. It's an emotional transition.
It's crazy how quickly things seem to change, and how my own perception of the family has evolved so quickly in just a few short years. Mostly it just feels like things have become more complex because I'm more aware of what everyone has going on. It's not as simple as it used to seem. I'm thankful everyone still makes the effort though. For me, that Sunday afternoon with the extended family was long overdue.
