One of my first purchases after I started working was a Kodak pocket camera. I had seen films as a teenager where a spy would slip his hand into his pocket and take out a tiny camera so that he could photograph some top secret documents which had been carelessly left strewn on the desk of an office. I thought that I was now ranked with the likes of The Professionals, The Saint and James Bond as I proudly took out my Instamatic Camera. Looking at modern technology today, there was very little that was “instant” about my little Kodak camera, I would take my couple of dozen photographs (interior ones with the aid of an extension arm and a flash cube) remove the film casette, take the film to the chemist in the village, then wait a week for my pictures to be developed and printed, only to discover that some of them were blurred and many off centre because of the unhlepful design of the camera.
I heard of one person who purchased a camera similar to this one just before going on the holiday of a lifetime and without spotting what she was doing, held the camera the wrong way around and manged to take several films full of pictures of her right ear! Very dissapointing. It seems scarcely believable today, just how labour intensive photography used to be. I am going on holiday shortly and will take pictures on my mobile phone or my larger digital camera. In the days of my little Kodak 100 instamatic, I might take thirty or forty pictures, looking back to my last summer holiday in 2019, I took around three thousand pictures in a fortnight, some of them brilliant and the kind of thing I might well show off, others not so good. Today, I can take a picture and the intant the shutter has closed, I can see the result. If I’m not satisfied, I can even touch the picture up, using my computer!
We live in an instant world today and we have come to expect immediate results, the pop group Queen released the track “I want it all and I want it now” in 1989 and that has become a sentiment adopted by the world and by and large the demand has been fulfilled. If we have gained nothing else through our pandemic experience it might be that we haven’t simply got our own way and we have had to wait. The gift of patience is a real virtue .
Maybe you would like to think about these words from Graham Kendrick and even use them as a prayer.
In your way and in your time
That’s how it’s gonna be in my life
And in your perfect way I’ll rest my weary mind
And as you lead I’ll follow close behind
And in your presence I will know your peace is mine
In your time there is rest, there is rest