Grandpa's Camera

Last summer, I had the privilege of staying the night with my Grandma who is now 96 years young. She’s really quite an amazing woman and still to this day lives independently!

My grandparents married in 1943 and the day after their wedding my Grandpa went off to WWII. Growing up, we never talked to Grandpa about his time in WWII. He didn’t want to talk about it so we learned not to ask. Remarkably, he was a very joyful man in spite of his time at war. It wasn’t until the year before he passed, when he went on an honor flight from Chicago to Washington DC, that he started sharing more war stories.

Back to my Grandma, while I was at her house last summer, I was asking her questions about the war and she leaned over to me and said “you know Grandpa’s uniform is still in the basement”… What?!?! How did I not know that his uniform was down there?!! We have stayed in their basement more times then I can count and never did I know his uniform was there!! Of course I had to go find it and not only did I find the uniform but also a mysterious little satchel…

I took a picture of the satchel to show my Grandma. She didn’t know what it was and just asked me to bring it up. It looked like it was just big enough to carry a little book or journal… only one way to find out - open it up!! In the satchel was this black plastic contraption… what is this??

No way!! It’s a camera!! We found a WWII camera!!! My Grandma kept saying “well how did that get in there?” She had no idea how the camera got there or why my Grandpa would have had a camera with him in WWII. Then we noticed the markings on the satchel… the letters S/SGT Stew? Stew had to be for Stewart but my Grandpa was a Private 1st Class when he left the war… more mystery!

This got me thinking, man how I wish camera’s could talk!! Oh wait, they do with pictures (this one didn't have any film, though!). We can only speculate about this camera - was it for recon work or just candid pictures of the war? At this point we will never know…

With digital photography today, our cameras tell so many stories and we can save the stories much easier! Oh the stories our cameras can tell now!! Most of the time my camera is telling my client’s story celebrating their special moments in life with joy and happiness. In my opinion, the more emotive the picture the better!

And that’s my point… pictures are a photographer’s way of telling a story! No picture… no story. Ok, that’s not completely true… you can clearly write out a story! But my point and my job as a photographer is to share your story in pictures! So, what’s your story and how can I help you share it?