So be it
Halfpenny complained that the Deer Run Camera Club was not ''progressive'' enough. Cramsey grumbled that, because of Halfpenny, our club was too ''progressive.'' Both Cramsey and Halfpenny had, over the years, threatened each other, and to quit us, many times. To be fair to Cramsey, Halfpenny did extend his progressiveness beyond reasonable limits. Yet Cramsey, whose rampaging after Halfpenny broke our furniture, was not without his faults.
The members, with the exception of Halfpenny, used moderation snapping photographs. Cramsey's virtue was that he never obtruded his Nikon EM unnecessarily on others. Dormeyer was circumspect, camerawise, disdaining to draw his Ricoh KR5-Super from its holster unless to use it. Penelope's handsome, jeweled Minolta XG-A was so invisible, we wondered how her photographs happened at all. Likewise, Robespierre, Helena, Jacques, and Hermione were ''camera discreet.''
Only Halfpenny used his Fujicas and Polaroids and Kodaks immoderately. Striving for the ''illusive, inverted, surprised'' mien in contemporary photography, he yelled ''Cheese!'' from obscure corners, from the ceiling, from the floor. When you peered up, or down, naively, or whirled to his voices in exasperation, blinking away the flashes, there Halfpenny was, or recently was, snapping 10 photographs simultaneously (legs bent around the chandelier, or balancing on broom handles - enlisting toes and nose as well as fingers). Cramsey growled, and we could not disagree: ''Too much!''
When, after finishing his report at our Tuesday evening board meeting, Halfpenny insisted on photographing the proceedings while roller skating fast around the table (to practice the popular ''circular, profound, uninterested'' posture in current photography), we did not protest, although Cramsey did. Our business demanded close attention, and Halfpenny's spinning visage was, to the best of our ability, ignored. Until near midnight, tempers feisty, Cramsey stood , tackled Halfpenny, tied him to a chair, and removed his cameras and equipment to ''where he'll never find them.'' After the cameras were locked up, we insisted Cramsey untie Halfpenny. ''There are plenty more where those came from, '' Halfpenny affirmed, and then he left.
Our efforts to discourage Cramsey from sealing up the room in Halfpenny's house where he suspected Halfpenny cached his cameras and equipment were futile. Cramsey said that, while Halfpenny was shopping, he removed the doors to a room with ''lots of boxes'' in it and cemented cement blocks in the spaces. ''Wrong room,'' Halfpenny remarked at our Thursday evening meeting, toting twice as many cameras, snapping twice as many photographs.
When, at our Friday evening meeting, Halfpenny strove for the fashionable ''quadruple, infallible, exotic, flamboyant'' mode in photography, and everybody was reeling and blinking and holding onto things, Cramsey, reaching an apex of rage, began to chase him. Around and around the room they went, Halfpenny eluding Cramsey, and Cramsey breaking furniture. They exited out the front door, Cramsey's imprecations fading in the distance, and never returned. Which was OK with us.
