So... Alright - The Canon F1

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

Geoff is blown away by a gift from a community member, as it takes him on a journey through his past. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So a couple things to get to get to-took-chik-took-took-took-took-pocket-a-chik-chik-a-poh. So a couple things to get to today. The very first thing, though, is that someone visited a kindness upon me recently, very recently yesterday, as a matter of fact, that I haven't been able to get out of my head. I do a weekly show called The Break Show, if you're not familiar with it. And I don't know why you would be. I don't really talk about it on this podcast much, but it's my like celebration of collectibles and collecting.

And every Monday at 3 p.m. I do a live show on Twitch where I, for an hour, I open up baseball cards, Disney cards, or blind boxes of figurines, or mail that the audience sends in with, you know, weird and wonderful stuff. And it's a regulation production, so it's a part of the main company.

And it's a lot of fun. But yesterday, yesterday a comment lever named Brandon sent in a care package that kind of stopped my heart for a second. He surprised me in a way that I didn't know I could still be surprised at 50 years old. He sent me, one of the kindest things someone has ever given me. Gavin even quipped that it might be a nicer gift

than any of my friends have ever given me, which is not true. Gavin has, I've been fortunate enough that received many, many wonderful gifts from my friends who know me very well. But this was an unspeakably kind gift, like an unbelievably kind gift. He sent me a Canon F-1 SLR camera. Why? Why did he send me a 35-millimeter film camera? Well, as you may or may not know from listening to this podcast, I used to be a photojournalist

in many lives ago when I was in the Army from 1993 to 1998. I was a United States Army photojournalist. And it was photography. I fell in love with. I joined the Army to become a journalist. I wanted to be a writer. I would say writing and reading were my very first loves. And I would say photography was the first love I ever had that caught me off guard, that I wasn't expecting, that I wasn't looking for, that wasn't on my radar. I wanted to join the Army to become a journalist. Photography was a part of the deal. And I discovered very quickly that I absolutely loved photography. It completely and totally took over my life from the ages of 18 until I would say probably about 26. I found out very quickly that I did not

want to be a journalist, that expository writing was maybe the most soulless and boring thing that I could possibly do. Now, journalism is an incredibly honorable profession, and the line between journalism and entertainment has gotten so blurred that I think there are very few true journalists out there today doing good journalism work, and that work is incredibly important. What I was doing in the Army was less so. I was writing about how well-training exercises went

and how when the local sixth grade class visited the Signal Battalion, they had pizza and learned how cool the Army was, Right. Like I wasn't doing any hard-hitting journalism. So for me, it was pretty instantly uninteresting. I did it because it was my job and I care about my job and I did the best job I could possibly do. But I very quickly became disillusioned with what journalism was, at least what it was for me in the military, right? I did a whole episode about how my career in the Army led to my career as an entertainer, right? I'm not going to rehash on that. I've already covered that ground. But I will say I very quickly fell in love with photography,

the photography side of the job over the journalism side of the job, because I found it to be infinitely more creative. And I felt like I had a lot of room to explore and learn. And every day I learned something more about photography. It seemed like there was this pool of knowledge that I could dive into whenever I wanted to, and I would never reach the bottom. But there was always just more photography knowledge to swim in and to learn and to absorb. And I voraciously did so until I stopped, until I stopped cold turkey, right? And the reasons I stopped were complicated. Ultimately, I was trying to raise a family, and the rigors of photojournalism I thought were

counterproductive to that. And the life that I would have had to have lived, I had the, I was blessed enough in the army to work with a lot of AP, Reuters, AFP, Time, New York Times, New York Post, you name it. I worked with photographers from those publications and those media organizations, and I would escort them as a part of a job as a photojournalist in the military.

It was also public affairs. You were a journalist. You were a photojournalist. You were a newspaper editor, layout and design specialist, and you were a public affairs specialist. You wore many, many hats in the Army. And thank God I did because it really prepared me for a career wearing mini hats all the time. But one of the most challenging but also rewarding hats that I would wear was being a public affairs specialist,

which when I was in Kuwait or Panama or wherever I was on deployment, I would become the liaison with the press. And so if a bunch of AP reporters in Kuwait wanted to visit a bunch of soldiers out in the field to find out why they're there and to take photos of them and to do a story on them, I was the person who would go meet them in downtown Kuwait. and then, you know, process them and then escort them 30 miles out into the desert to meet some soldiers that we had prearranged for them to meet in a very controlled environment, take their photos, escort them wherever else they wanted to go next, and then call it a day, right? I did that every day, seven days a week when I was in the field. And in the course of that, I got to meet a lot of really talented, interesting, aspirational, professional journalists and

photographers and I got to shoot alongside them and I got to learn so much by doing that and I got to I leveled up photography like six times over like unfair it's like just think of like early world of warcraft when you just find a spot where you can just grind out levels and it seems like you're clearly exploiting the game but you're like all your friends are level five and you're like level 12 and you did next to nothing right that's what it felt like on those media escort days when I got to shoot alongside professional photographers and I got to literally be entrenched Somebody took a photo of me running through trenches with other photographers, and it was just, I don't know whatever happened to the photo, but I loved it because I felt so of that world

and on par, and I felt like I was operating there with my peers, and it was another professional photographer who took the photo, and it was just a really cool, gratifying moment. No idea whatever happened to that. Probably hadn't thought about it in 20 years until this moment. However, the point being, I fell hard in love with photography. And the tool of my trade was a Canon F1 manual SLR camera. It was Canon's first professional SLR. I did a little bit of reading on it. It hit the market in 1970, I believe. It was upgraded to the new Canon F1 in 1981. I shot both of those interchangeably the entire time I was in the military. In 1993, when I went into journalism school at Fort Benjamin Harrison, they issued me a Canon F1 camera. That became my life for the next

eight months or however long I was in journalism school. Then at the end, I turned it in. And when I got stationed at Fort Hood, the first thing they issued me was an M16. The second thing they issued me was another Canon F1 camera. It was photography in one beauty. It was the entire world. It was my entire career. It was my only tool. By the time I got out of the military, it felt like an extension of my body. I took it with me everywhere I went, 24 hours. hours a day. When I was on base, it documented my life and the life of every soldier I could come in contact with. And when I was off base, it documented my life and the life of every skateboarder and friend and punk band I could come in contact with. I used it for work. I used it for pleasure.

It was how I made my living. It was how I relaxed. It was my entire fucking world. Other cameras existed in the world. Obviously, we also had Nikon F4s. They were beautiful and they were modern. They had motor drives built in, whereas my Canon F1, I had to affix a motor drive on it that made it weigh like what felt like 50 pounds. And when you're running through the fucking desert with miles gear on and a 30 pound rucksack and an M16, you're also carrying a fucking camera bag. Shit gets heavy pretty fast. However, we did have other cameras. I've talked about how at the tail end of my time in the military, we started to shoot digital. These Kodak digital backs that you would affix onto a Nikon F4, and they were incredibly expensive and incredibly heavy. And I loved using them,

but they were also incredibly delicate. And everything I did was in the mud and in the woods or honestly, probably in 120 degree desert in sandstorms and shit. Like, the job of an army journalist is, an army photographer, is to be uncomfortable and hot or cold and messy and dirty at all times. And so you would take a fucking Nikon F4 with you out to Kuwait for four. months and the goddamn thing would go down in the first week because it got caught in the sandstorm and it's useless and you got to ship it back. So very quickly, I just decided that I was going to be very good at this unbreakable, unstoppable, tank of a camera, the Canon F1. I never owned one because I never needed to own one because the military provided me with one everywhere I lived. When I moved to

Fort Monmouth, New Jersey from my last year in the army, there was a Canon F1 sitting there waiting for me when I got there. I no longer had a dark room, whereas at Fort Hood, I had a dark room for three and a half years that, or Fort Cavazos, I'm sorry, although I guess it, oh, I hate, it's so confusing. I think they're changing the names back again, uh, in a, in a show of stupidity. I don't know. The place that I was stationed at, uh, I had a dark room there the entire time, so I developed all my own film. I shot mostly black and white or color slide, which I did not develop. You had to get developed professionally. Color slides a nightmare to try to fucking develop and it's way more chemicals and processes and it's just not worth it.

regardless, we are now 12 minutes into what was going to be a pretty short story to say that a guy named Brandon, who fell in love with photography after, he sent me a very heartfelt letter about how his father died unfortunately and unexpectedly, and in his belongings, he found a camera, not this camera, he just found a different camera. I think it was a pentax. And he fell in love with photography by discovering his father's love of photography posthumously. And because it became so important to him and hearing stories about me, talking about my love of photography in the past. He saw a Canon F1 somewhere and he very, very, very kindly bought it and sent it to me with even a couple of roles of film and some lenses. And I mean, it's a complete

setup. And the act of kindness is overwhelming. But what happened when I put that camera in my hands, I was, I opened it up live, you know, in an episode of The Break Show, not expecting to help to pull a piece of equipment out of a bag that I hadn't touched since I was like 26 years. No. Yeah, since I hadn't touched this, I was about 26 years old. And it was a thing that I thought that the more I had it in my hand, the more it would become second nature to have it in my hand. So I would just carry it, even when I wasn't shooting or when I wasn't using it. wanted, this thing was glued to my body. It was glued to my mind and it was glued to my heart and it was glued to my creativity for so long. And when I walked away from it, because, as I was

saying earlier, I got off on a tangent, but I was talking about how I got to level up in photography and fall in love with photography through meeting all these journalists, these photojournalists who I was escorting out like in Kuwait and stuff. What ultimately stopped me from continuing the field, I said, I thought it was counterproductive to raising a family. That was because the workload, but also I witnessed, not physically, but I got pretty close to a bunch of photographers one year, about seven of them. And in the middle of a week, something kicked up in Israel or Palestine, I can't remember. And they left to go cover that because this was not a big deal what we were doing in Kuwait. And so they left to go cover that. And like two of them died. Three days after I

had hung out with them, two of them got killed covering a story. And that affected me. And one other the journalist, photojournalist, that I escorted, I found out died again later down the road. And that also affected me. That felt somehow, I felt somehow safe being a journalist in the army. But it seemed far more dangerous to be a civilian photojournalist. You know, I don't know why, but it did. And that also played a big part into why I said goodbye to that career and restarted my life, which led me

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Uh, to circle back around, picking this camera up, something that I had very complicated emotions about over the last 20 years. so much anymore, but it was a hard thing to walk away from, but, and I don't know how to explain this, I'm a, I'm a Min Max kind of guy, I guess. If you're familiar with D&D, you know what Min Max is, but I'm either all ones or all 20s, roll on a 20s side of die. And I either love something and it's the most amazing thing in the world to me, and I can't get enough of it, or I have no interest in it whatsoever. I was very invested in being the best possible photographer I could be. To say that I was competitive in that arena would be a tremendous understate. I was very

focused, laser focused on being the best, knowing that I would have to take a tremendous step back leaving the military in that career. And I started looking at local photojournalism gigs. I knew that I couldn't be traveling the world. I had opportunities. I think I could have made a go of it. And I'd made some really great contacts, at least with the journalists that didn't die. And I had some options. I had some offers to go and apply at some places when I got out of the military.

But it all would have taken me away from raising and growing a family, which is what I was focused on. And it would have required me to continue to make photography the only thing I cared about. And I couldn't do that and be married and have a family too. I don't know how else to describe it other than it was, it was all or nothing for me. And it was a very easy thing to say goodbye to, honestly. It was like flipping a switch. I just decided that I was done with it and I turned it off and that I would put my focus elsewhere. But when I did that, it created a wall that made it hard for me to look back on.

You know, like I could walk away from it as long as I didn't look in the rear of your mirror too hard. And I'm not saying this was a healthy way to handle this. I'm not saying I have ever handled anything in a healthy manner in my entire life. life. This is just the way it worked for me, the way I had to do it. I had to lock it in a box and put that box out of my mind. And then touch cameras or photography for many, many years. When I pick up a phone and I take a picture now, it's bad that everybody makes fun of me. I think it's the lingering effect of just not, I don't know, I don't know what it is, but I had to quit cold turkey. And so it made looking backwards,

even nostalgiaically kind of hard for me for a long time I don't have that problem anymore I'm over

all that bullshit now and holding that camera in my hand was like I think I may have said

this earlier but I kind of stopped my heart for a second like it I don't know how to describe it it felt

so comfortable and right and everything fit like immediately everything fit? Like, I can pick up a camera now, one of Millie's cameras, and I can do whatever I want to

with it. I still understand how to use a camera. I still understand the law of reciprocity. I still understand shutter speed and focal length and aperture. I'm not, I have no issue operating a camera. One of the things that bothers me about picking up one of Millie's cameras is that I feel like my hands move in slow motion. I got to like slowly find everything and figure out where it goes and how to, you know what I mean? Like, I just feel like I'm, my hands are dumb, and they are not able to apply the knowledge that my brain has to the item. But picking up that Canon F1, it was like, I had last touched it yesterday. I don't know how I'll describe it. It was a very, very powerful feeling to hold it in my hands, and it felt heavier than I remembered,

but it felt right. It felt, it felt like I, it was like a, it felt electric almost, you know, I don't know. I don't know what that means. I don't know if that means. I don't know if that that I'm going to take a bunch of photos now and get back into photography. I can't promise that that's what it means. But it definitely means that Brandon gave me a very physical and emotional and mental and sensory connection to a huge part of my past that I have refused to spend much time waiting in the nostalgic waters of. And, uh, I feel like this podcast is just turning into me discovering things I used to love that I walked away from. And two weeks ago or three weeks ago, we were talking about how I walked away from music.

And, you know, I'd rediscovered my love for it in Riot Fest and missed the 20 years or whatever that I'd abandoned it. And here I am talking about holding a camera that I haven't held since I was in my mid-20s and realizing how much time has passed. I don't miss it. It's not like I have any regret there. I'm really happy with the way my career turned out. And I'm happy with my time as a photographer. But it is... It's just really cool. It's just, I don't know how to describe it.

It's just holding the camera. It just feels so good. I feel, it just feels, it feels like time is folding in on itself and bending and collapsing. And it's in all the best ways. And thank you, Brandon. Thank you for everything you wrote in that letter. Thank you for the kind things you said to the other guys too. I will get the letter to them so that they can read your words as well that were directed

toward them. And, uh, and thank you for helping me reconnect with something from my past that I haven't thought about in any real tangible way in a really long time. And physically putting it in my fucking hand is about as real and tangible thing as you can do. And it was a jolt, a shock to my system. And I really, really appreciate it. And to say that I was touched is an understatement. Thank you so much. Wow, that went a little bit longer than I'd anticipated. I was going to talk about a bunch of other stuff today, too. I had a bunch of homework.

I was supposed to listen to Drug Church and gouge away and pile, and I'm supposed to watch Tampa edition of this old house. I haven't done any of that stuff yet, but I will. I'm also supposed to do a review of a bad movie I watched called Out of Control, which would be the second installment of 3 a.m. theater. It's the movie that I watched from the recommendations after River of Death. I guess I'm not going to get to it today. already a little long on the tooth. I don't want to overdo it. But look for that next week.

In addition, I just learned about a guy named Bill Davis, who has five rookie cards in five separate years in Major League Baseball. He was a rookie five separate times due to trades and injuries. And I kind of want to read about him a little bit. I don't know how much more interesting the story is than what I just explained to you. But I'm going to dive into that a little bit and see what I can learn. I'll probably talk about that next week. And also, maybe we'll try to collect those five rookie cards because I doubt they're very expensive. Oh, I recently caught up. I'm almost caught up. You know, I've talked in the past about how I'm trying to, I'm trying to get completely

caught up on the Alien, the Predator, and the Terminator franchises, and I'm all caught up on Alien. I'm pretty, I'm caught up on Terminator except for the Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I guess I will have to watch at some point. I was getting pretty close on Predator. I just finally watched Prey, so now I've seen every Predator film except for the animated film that came out earlier this year, late last year. I will watch that this week in time for Predator Badlands to come out, I think, in November. Prey was fucking great, though. I get why everybody liked it so much. Really fun movie. Such a great take on the franchise. I love the fact that they went backwards instead of forwards. A lot of times that can be lame. But let's

be honest, a lot of Predator is lame. You know, the Predators, the Fighting Island is lame. I think that's what Predator Badlands is about to be again. By the way, speaking of lame, can I just say one thing that bugs me about every fucking Predator film, it has been a problem in every fucking Predator film, and you need to fix it or stop doing it.

Any time, a Predator's a scary dude. He's a big scary dude. He's got lasers on his shoulder. He's got crazy mouth stuff going on. He opens up and looks like he's going to swallow you. He's got fucking laser nets that slice through you.

there's so much that terrifies me about the predator. He can turn invisible. But when he takes his big, dumb, clunky predator fingers with his big, dumb, clunky predator nails, and then he tries to fucking press buttons on his forearm computer, it looks so goddamn lame every time. Predator, Predator 2, Predators, the predator, pray.

Anytime the predator pushes one of the fucking digital triangles on his arm. It looks so stupid. Stop it. Don't do it anymore. Fix the hands or just don't make him press the buttons. It takes me out of the moment so bad. It's like when you see it's like it's like the first time you notice in a new hope when Darth Vader puts his hand on his side and does the in the hallway and you're like, well, I can never be scared of Darth Vader again for the rest of my life. Now that I've seen him do that, I will never be afraid of that man again. I feel the same way about the predator every time he's like

it's so fucking dumb all right that's my predator gripe very excited to watch the animated movie this week hopefully they address this this glaring issue and have already fixed it if not then fingers crossed Predator Badlands will

all right I think oh man there was some other stuff I wanted to get to but I guess we'll just have to wait because I still have to edit this thing and get it out to you guys It just means I'm excited to record next week's so all right. I did a thing where I will leave myself. Sometimes I leave notes for myself, right?

And sometimes they're a little ambiguous and it takes me a while to figure them out. But sometimes I will quite unintentionally go down a rabbit hole and then I realize I'm going down a rabbit hole and it's going to bear fruit and I don't want to do it because I want to do it on camera or on mic rather with you guys because I like the, I like catching the discovery in the moment, you know? And a lot of times I'll do that and then it doesn't go anywhere. so I just cut it out and delete it and you guys never hear it. But I left myself a note and a breadcrumb note.

And I genuinely don't know where it came from. So we're going to try to follow that. And I actually know where it's going. I just don't know where it's started. I don't know where the genesis of the note came from. So we'll dive into that next week. And maybe, who knows, we'll go to the end and maybe we can figure out reverse engineer the beginning from that. Regardless, I had a wonderful time talking to you this week.

Thank you again to Brandon for one of the kindest gifts anyone has ever given me. You have no idea what it did to my heart in all the best ways. And I just, I am indebted to you forever. And I guess it's now time for a song of the episode. I'm looking through my songs of the episode. Okay, we'll do this. We're going to go with Architecture in Helsinki this week. Maybe you can owe me.

That is, maybe you can owe me by Architecture in Helsinki. from the In Case We Die album, I think, if you like this song, listen to the whole album. It's not even the best song in the album, but it is a good song. And I will see you right back here next week for another installment of So All Right. All right. This is the end of the show.