A Thousand Paper Cranes
I have always loved taking pictures. When I was little, I used my cheap digital camera to take pictures of anything and everything. I took pictures of my family, my pets my belongings… Anything I had access to, I photographed. The summer before I turned eight was when I actually became interested in professional photography. Every night I dreamt of the fancy props, cameras, lenses and lighting that someday I would use to photograph everyone who was anyone. I’d be famous. I would photograph celebrities, super-models, big figures in politics; I’d be the photographer who everyone would envy… If only I could get that camera.
“Mimi, make sure your room is clean!” my mom yelled from the living room. I was sitting on the ground, running my fingers through the pink, plush carpet that covered my bedroom floor. I was daydreaming, which was very typical me.
Everywhere around me reporters rush around, trying to get a story. “Mimi! Mimi! How did the photo shoot go with the presidential family yesterday?”“Mimi! Mimi! Do you ever plan on helping other photographers follow in your steps?”
“Mimi! Is your room clean? We need to run errands!” my mom yelled again, quickly jolting me back to reality. I rushed to throw the papers and pencils back in my laptop bag, and then I turned my computer off and grabbed my wallet. I ran into the living room and careened around the corner, just stopping short of the dividing wall.
“I called your name four times. Why didn’t you answer me?” My mom’s voice hinted with anger.
“Sorry, Mom,” I apologized. “I was daydreaming.”
“You always daydream. If only those daydreams could be productive. Now come on, let’s go to the market. I have to pick up groceries for dinner.” I jumped into the passenger seat of the car and glanced through the windshield. It was a dark, gloomy day, and the lighting outside would create a picture. Of course, my digital camera was in my pocket, but the cheap camera with the less-than-adequate flash would not capture a quality photograph in the dim light.
We pulled up to the market, and the hustle and bustle of the area immediately captured my attention. All around me were people dressed in colorful, patterned clothes, darting shadows made by hurried people rushing through the crowds, and shades of every color in the spectrum on flyers, posters and banners. Women and children walked around, holding hands, the children amusing themselves with small, plastic toys, the women going over their shopping lists in their minds with a perplexed yet determined looks on their faces. Oh, how I long to be famous, to be able to walk into a place like this, pull out my camera, and photograph everything.
I came out of my trance-like daydream only to find myself lost in a crowd, not knowing where to find my mom. While I was walking through the store looking for her, I turned the corner into the electronics section of the small market, and I found my dream camera. I stopped mid-stride and stared at the breathtakingly amazing camera. Beside it were lenses, filters, things I had no idea what they did, and a store sale sign. On top of all that, everything fit into the bright yellow camera bag sitting behind the camera. That camera had to be mine.
“Mom!” I yelled, forgetting where I was. Everyone in the electronic section of the store suddenly stared at me. My cheeks reddened, and I quickly searched the store for my mom. I ran over to her in the produce section and immediately told her everything. “Mom, it’s the best camera ever and it is a professional one too and it comes with these fancy lenses and filters and flashes and a bright yellow case and I want, Mom, I want it!”
“Honey,” my mom said calmly. My face was flush, partly from being embarrassed by myself when I shouted out, but also because I had just spoken the longest sentence without taking one single breath. “Did you see one crucial detail?”
“Yes, Mom! Of course, it is compatible with my laptop! I have to but it right now!”
“Did you happen to look at the price?” my mom questioned, very well knowing the answer to her own question. My heart sank, and all of the joy in my entire being was drained. The price. I trudged back over to the shelf in search of that dreaded price. It had to be horrible expensive, probably thousands of dollars. I would never make that much money in my entire life. Nevertheless, there was one glimmer of hope. A sale sign sat beside it! I looked into my wallet: I had a ten-dollar bill, a coffee-shop gift card for seventeen dollars, and six pennies. It had better be a 99.9% off sale, I silently remarked. I finally reached the shelf after the longest walk of my life, a walk full of fear of the price. I looked up at the sign and brought it into focus through my tears. It cost six hundred fifty dollars. Six hundred fifty dollar! I didn’t even have enough money to pay the sales tax on the camera! I was so depressed. There had to be some way to obtain my dream camera. Later, I scrounged for all the money in my room, and I came up with thirty-two dollars and fourteen cents—only one twentieth of the cost of the camera.
“Please, Mom! Please! I promise I will do anything at all for you! I’ll cook, I’ll clean, I’ll even scrub toilets! Pleaassseee!” I begged my mom relentlessly for a few days following our trip to the market. Even though I begged and pleaded, my mom would not budge on her decision. “If you want it so badly, then you need to figure out a way to earn it,” she said firmly, causing me to stop my begging. I stopped begging, secretly hoping she would reconsider but knowing she wouldn’t.
How in the world am I going to come up with six hundred fifty dollars? I thought to myself. I contemplated all of my options: extra chores, babysitting, lemonade stand, and… selling my electronics. Jackpot! I had a stash of outdated video games and systems which I never played past the first few days I had them. I packed all of the electronics into a cardboard box I found in my closet, and drug the box into the living room. “Mom, I’m going to sell all of my games.” I said, hoping to catch a ride to the local electronics shop. Instead of a ride, I received something completely unexpected.
“Oh, no you aren’t!” my mom exclaimed. “I promised those games to your niece.” I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to pull all of the hair out of my head. Instead of doing these things, I decided to walk back to my room calmly and maturely. A temper tantrum couldn’t help the situation at all. Of course, I’ll come up with another plan, I told myself optimistically. That’s when it hit me: origami. Yes, that’s right, origami. I would obtain that camera by doing origami. I picked up the stack of colored papers and leafed through the patterns. Turtles, boxes, balloons, doves…Aha! I found the pattern for the crane. An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds one thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury, and I would be one of few to complete the feat. I knew exactly what I would wish for, and I knew I just had to fold the cranes as soon as possible.
I began my work on the very next day. I spread all of the colored papers on the floor of my room and devised my plan. If I fold one hundred every day, it will take me ten days. On the tenth day, I will go to bed super early to rest up and make sure I have enough energy to make a powerful wish. When I wake up I will wish for that camera—wish with all my might, with all of the internal power my four foot three inch, seventy-five pound body had. Then, the camera will be mine. I set out to practice the technique of folding the paper cranes. It was a complex, easy to mess up origami animal. Every paper I “folded” turned into a crumpled wad, which I consequently wadded up further and launched into the paper wastebasket opposite of me. I just couldn’t figure out how to fold a crane!
I asked my mom to help, and even though she didn’t know how to do it, she helped me a lot. She printed out a systematic instruction page, meant for kids like me, and I patiently waited for the printer to spit it out. The impending moments could not have possibly moved any slower. Finally, it was done, and I grabbed it and sprinted to my room. The instructions did wonders for my technique, and after one more failed attempt, I finally had one perfect paper crane. It was red in color, larger than most of the rest would be. The first step to owning my dream camera. I then looked at the clock. 4:00pm. Four o’ clock?! I spent three hours on my project and had only folded one paper crane. This just wasn’t going well. I rushed to finish a few more, but they turned out unsatisfactory. I placed the perfectly folded red paper crane on the shelf in my room and abandoned the project. School started, and my life became busy. I pushed the thoughts of the camera to the back of my mind, and I focused on schoolwork, friends and chores. I used my digital camera to take the best pictures possible with what I had, and I grew more and more skilled each time. Every time I looked around, my mind raced with thoughts of composition, color, and balance. If something caught my eye, I snapped a picture with the cheap camera. I kept putting all of my pictures on my laptop to keep them safe, and the folder of pictures kept growing larger and larger. I put that little camera to good use.
Then, something amazing happened! Just amazing! Over Thanksgiving break, I went to the same market with my mom. Of course, the camera was still there—but I knew that was never going to happen, so I avoided the electronics section of the market. I detoured around the section, and therefore had to walk through the back of the store by where people post flyers about community events. On a bright yellow piece of paper, a small yet very eye-catching flyer stood out to me. I walked over to it, and pushed a couple other flyers out of the way so I could read it. Amateur photography contest, open to all ages, no requirements, any type of camera will work, grand prize: the very camera featured in this store. This was truly amazing. My camera was the grand prize for this contest that I could enter! I kept reading: Only criteria: one, the subject must be an object, not people; two, it must portray a sense of optimism, happiness and/or cheerfulness; three, the photograph must be accompanied by an explanation as to why it meets the criteria. Postmark by Tuesday, November 24 to be eligible to win. Winner will be announced Thanksgiving Day.
November 24th. It was two days away. I only had two days to take the most amazing photograph. Ideas raced through my head about what the subject could be. What is the happiest, most cheerful and optimistic object in my life? Can objects even be happy, cheerful, and optimistic?
I went home and told mom about my findings, showing her the bright yellow flyer. I questioned about the most happy, cheerful, and optimistic moment in my life. My mom jokingly said, “When you were planning on buying that camera back a few months ago!”
Of course! I could do a photograph based on my one thousand paper cranes. I ran up to my room, and scribbled out a sketch. I would take a photo of the biggest paper crane surrounded by a few smaller ones, giving the illusion of many of them. I folded nine more, for a total of ten. It was amazing how quickly I could fold them when the goal was more reachable. I played with different positions and lightings, and decided on a bright light off to the side so that the biggest paper crane would cast a shadow behind it but not on the smaller ones. The background would be my tan walls, and my pink, plush carpet would add another texture to the print. I laid belly-down on my floor and took the picture at a level point of view. I was extremely happy with my photograph, so the next step would be transferring it to my computer.
I plugged my camera in, and my photograph filled the screen. This is definitely a winner, I thought to myself. I printed it out onto one of the last pieces of photo paper I had. Then, I opened up the notepad program on my computer and began typing the explanation:
“I have always loved taking pictures. When I was little, I used my cheap digital camera to take pictures of anything and everything. I took pictures of my family, my pets my belongings… Anything I had access to, I photographed. The summer before I turned eight was when I actually became interested in professional photography. Every night I dreamt of the fancy props, cameras, lenses and lighting that someday I would use to photograph everyone who was anyone. I’d be famous. I would photograph celebrities, super-models, big figures in politics; I’d be the photographer who everyone would envy… If only I could get that camera.”
Needless to say, I won the contest. I poured my heart, my soul, my everything into that story. It was about my life, and I found it incredibly easy to write about. I received the camera, and the local newspaper published my photo and story. People all over the town recognized me and congratulated me. I carried the professional camera with the fancy lenses and color filters and flashes and a bright yellow case just like it was my trophy. It took pictures of my entire life, captured moments of my personal history with its lenses, memories that I wanted to remember forever. That camera became a part of me—it became my memory, which held far more than my mind could, and it became my eyes, which saw things in a much different way than my real eyes did. And to think, I won that part of me by folding one thousand paper cranes…Well, maybe just ten.