A New Year's Resolution

New Year. New financial fear. Added to accounting for a new calendar year, new religious year, and new car license year...every year...it is a wonder that we can remember anything that we have resolved. I have taken to putting stickers around the house to remind myself, but I sometimes forget where I put the stickers...

Never mind. If we are enjoined o make moral resolutions for the religious new year and practical ones for the calendar new year, I guess we can make financial ones this month. Here goes.

I have a bundle of old camera equipment that is sitting in the studio and the safe - unused for 5 or more years. If it was socks there would be moth holes in them - as it is there is figurative dust accumulating. It is time to turn these still-fine items into new items that I actually will use.

I'm lucky - I have gear that still has some intrinsic value - not much, but a little. I can offer it for sale knowing that there are actual customers for it. My resolution is that I will get off my rusty and actually do it. The return of some money will be one thing, but the real benefit will be that it will clear the mind of sitting and wondering what to do with it. Once gone and converted to a new lens I will be off to new adventures.

May I suggest the same to you? If your old gear is truly old junque...I realise these are strong terms, but we are adults now...give it to a charity. Or take it to the Workshop Camera Club camera market and set up a stall and learn a great deal about human nature in the space of a morning. One tip - sniff. If granddad's dear old 35mm Flapoflex or your automatic film compact smells like vinegar or old socks or a rabbit hutch in hot weather, ditch it in the bin.

If it is not bad and not cheap and not broken, a professional dealer may express some interest - but generally only if it will have a profitable resale. Be honest with yourselves - if no-one wants to buy it from the newspaper or Gumtree or the camera market, they are not going to buy it from a shop. Time to be realistic. Bin.

So where has this blog gone? Round in a circle, I daresay, but at a tangent from that circle will be some benefit from the turnover of the gear that is just sitting there. I am sentimental about it, but then I am sentimental about Curtis Lemay and the 21st USAAF and that never gets me noticed at parties either.

Change.