What image-makers want to find under the menorah
I grew up Jewish, and while I’m not quite old enough – contrary to what my children and grandchildren would have you believe – to have marched in the army led by Judah Maccabee, a.k.a. “Judah the Hammer,” in a revolt against the Syrian monarch Antiochus in the neighborhood of 165 BCE, I love to celebrate the ancient victory that led to the liberation and re-consecration of the sacred Second Temple of Jerusalem. There are, of course, festive songs, foods, and games that mark the occasion, but the signature event of the eightday festivities encompassing Hanukkah is the lighting of a series of candles in the ritual candlelabrum called a menorah, the Hebrew word for lamp.
In the Old Testament’s Book of Exodus, God gives Moses detailed instructions for the proper way to build a seven-armed lampstand out of pure gold, with three olive oil holders on each of two sides and a “master” holder in the middle from which the other lights are kindled. Depending on sources and traditions, the seven containers may represent the seven main areas of human knowledge or, more often, the seven days of creation, with the center being the Sabbath.
The Hanukkah menorah is a little different. It has nine light holders – these days, the lights are typically wax candles – four per side, with the starter candle, known as the shammash, the “attender,” or helper, in the center. The reason for the two extras is that the “Feast of Lights” celebrates a miracle. When Judah liberated the Temple, the leader found that there was only enough sacred oil for one day’s illumination, and yet, thanks be to God, went the ancient refrain, the oil lasted eight days!
The rest, as they say, is history: my history.
One of our family’s traditions was that each member of the Fellman clan, with my grandmother thrown in to make eight, got one day of Hanukkah for our own. Not only were we lighting the candles and saying the appropriate blessings, but we also got to present the gifts – gifts we made, not bought. (My parents and grandma were actually allowed to break ranks and purchase stuff; we kids never complained.)
In addition to my religious affiliation, I also grew up a photographer – my dad was a serious amateur image maker, and I followed in his footsteps – so everyone knew in advance that they were going to receive a mounted print of something I’d shot and then developed and printed in my dad’s darkroom. Since I was bitten early by the natural history bug, most of the subjects were akin to what I’ve spent a lifetime capturing, and if there’s a naturalist on your holiday gift list, whatever holiday you’re planning to celebrate, I think a print of something memorable, rare, or simply lovely would be just about perfect. Of course, almost none of us, myself included, work in the dark any more – processing pictures made with an old technology involving film requires the use of toxic chemicals that can poison ground water and can’t be disposed of in rural areas that are outside the service of sewage treatment systems – but there are now plenty of environmentally acceptable ways to print images.
In a bygone era, I would have followed that little nugget with a shameless ad for my own photo services, as in, if anyone out there is interested in a printed copy of a shot you’ve enjoyed in the Journal, don’t hesitate to contact me for prices and availability. Folks have done this in the past, but these days, due to the prevalence of smart phones equipped with excellent cameras, everyone’s a photographer. Not only do far fewer people need images made by old pros, but an increasing percentage of humanity actually prefers the digital-only version of the shot, rather than a paper-based reproduction.
Still, I’m old-fashioned, as well as just old, so I have all of these print possibilities you might want to consider, and I also could offer a wealth of knowledge about equipment used to capture print-worthy natural subjects. In terms of what’s out there in the gift-giving department, good Lord, there’s a lot, and there’s been, in the past several years, yet another technological revolution in the photography department.
There is, of course, the remarkable improvement in the camera systems that come with savvy cellphones, and at the higher end of the spectrum, the cameras are, for everything but ultra-specialized situations, the rivals of anything in my possession. And if smart phone innovations weren’t enough, there’s an entirely new species of traditional-looking cameras out there. When I made the transition from film to digital some 20 years ago, the existing platforms resembled the single-lens-reflex innards of the film days. But recently, technologists have figured out a way to ditch the internal mirror at the heart of those cameras in favor of a lighter weight and faster mirrorless system that is all the rage right now. Indeed, to look
through the pre-holiday sale ads, you’d get the impression that my collection of so-called dSLRs and lenses is akin to the dinosaurs.
The future is, for a vari
ety of reasons too complex to go into here, almost certainly mirrorless, and while I’ll probably stick to my old, tried-and-true technology for
the foreseeable future, I definitely would, if I were just starting out – or had