Wintery blue skies in the lower east side of Manhattan, New York.

This was on the CF card when I first turned on the camera. The timestamp is June 23, 2009, and that is me, age 12, on a family trip to England.

I recently found an older Nikon Coolpix 3100 in my mom’s basement. It was bought in the early 2000s for an upcoming family vacation, and I never remember it being used. My dad started his career as a photojournalist, so carrying around laughably large cameras was standard. He always encouraged me to shoot with his DSLR, so at the time this camera made a very small impression.

While the Coolpix was never my camera of choice, it has been a joy to rediscover it. I love how tiny it is. The only reason I grabbed it in the first place was the size and the fact it takes AA batteries. Running on AAs makes a camera feel like a fun little toy.

Once powered on the Coolpix was suddenly filled with fun features. The first was the 128 MB CF card. I usually shoot with a Nikon D780, so I am used to individual files almost half that size. After a deep dive into the very limited menu, I was very excited to find some very weird and fun modes including “Group Right”, “Portrait Left”, “Sport Composite”, “Portrait Couple”, and many more.

While I don’t love this camera, I’m having a great time making the most of what the 3MB sensor offers!

I love when the moon is out during the day. I also love power lines. I stopped to catch this mass of geometry on a walk with my mom in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The following collection is from a trip over the Christmas holiday to visit my aunt and uncle in Waitsfield, Vermont. I was very impressed with what the camera produced in low light and funky fog conditions.

This final image is using the camera’s “Sport Composite” mode. These little contact sheets are pure gold. I wish all cameras could do this. They seem to completely kill the battery, but so cool! This person was preparing for upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations in Chinatown, New York.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading! Come back again :)

Aaron

serendipity 🤭

On a Walk