Grandfather’s camera

When using an old camera I have used many times, a second hand camera I have bought or in this case a camera that was owned by my grandfather (my Poppy), I can’t help but be invited into it’s past. Looking through the viewfinder can I get a glimpse of what it has seen?

Film cameras have a different energy. Is this due to the slow gaze that it produces and hence the fuller expressed meaning of a shot? When shooting film I slow down and I’m certainly more considered. It creates a more intimate connection to the camera. I talk to my dear cameras as friends as they accompany me on journeys of discovery. It’s behind the lens doing personal work where I feel comfortable, contemplative and at times openly vulnerable to my feelings. We can’t help but anthropomorphise animals but can we become friends with a camera and assume then that we are believers in panpsychism?

Using my poppy’s camera, a Minolta Himatic 7s rangefinder was wonderful. It felt somewhat of a sacred object and had a different energy to it. Many times when using the camera I would think about him. What has he seen through this camera. Holding the camera to the eye I thought about him doing the exact same action and the time that has passed between. This furthered layer to the act of photography bought about a heightened experience, one that I can only assume added to the outcome of the images.

© Christian Pearson - captured using my Poppy’s Minolta Himatic 7s