When I was a little girl my dad bought himself a new camera, it was a Chinon CE-5 SLR from Dixons. My sister and I were huge posers when we were younger so were more than happy to have our pictures taken whilst he got to grips with the camera and its super snazzy interchangeable lens! After a few weeks of dabbling he decided that the he needed a darkroom so he could develop the photographs himself (sepia and black and white were all the rage in the late 80’s and getting prints like that from Trueprint wasn’t always an option!) so he converted our loft into an amazing space where he could spend hours perfecting the photo’s he’d taken. I have really fond memories of sitting in the darkroom with him, being allowed to dip the photo-paper into the developer fluid with wooden tongues and watch as the images magically appear before my eyes!
Me with my sister modelling the straw hat of the season….
Wasn’t I cute! I just needed to work on blending that blush…
On the back of each of these photo’s my dad wrote the filter he’d used, the developing and exposure time!
It was here my love for photography began. I wasn’t great at taking the photos but that didn’t matter, my dad was patient with me and I loved watching him carefully rolling out the film and then how he’d develop the photographs, how you could adjust the tiniest of details by adding or reducing time in that magical liquid or how a long exposure could give amazing light effects!
As I grew older I spent less time sitting with my dad developing our family photographs, I’d hit my teenage years and hanging about with friends took up a lot more of my time (as did boys!) We’d also been introduced to a new way of remembering holidays and birthdays, my dad had bought a Sony Handicam!
From that point not a single dance show, birthday party or holiday wasn’t recorded! We have videos of me and my sister with my cousins acting out made up plays in my auntie’s livingroom, dance routines to Kylie at family weddings and my sister and I performing skits and recreating adverts! And my dad captured every moment….(even my eye rolling!)
We’d been bridesmaids the day before and really loved our dresses! In fact I think we put them on almost every day after school!
As time has gone by there’s become less need to have an actual camera, our smart phones are brilliant at taking hundreds of digital photos and recording clips which can be posted and shared within seconds! All of my instagram and blog photos are taken on my Galaxy S9 which has a brilliant camera but now I’m starting to really enjoy using a proper camera again, its also lovely holding an actual photograph (by the edges obviously…. I can still hear my parents telling me off for getting finger prints onto the photos!) and looking carefully at all of the details, it feels so much more real than swiping through endless images on my phone. I have the best memories of my childhood and most of them I’m able to remember because of my dad and his love for documenting almost every moment! The Chinon has long gone, as has the Handicam so this year for Christmas I’m treating my dad to a new camera, after all it’s thanks to him I’m able to be creative and capture the content I do now but its not a snazzy one with an interchangeable lens, its a compact that can capture the stills and record those memorable moments all in one!
Camera is a Nikon Coolpix A900 available at Very
As always thank you for reading!
Tracey
*This post is written in collaboration with Very. All photographs and words are my own
Awww what a lovely, heart warming post.
Dads are great aren’t they and I bet he’s going to Iove his Christmas present this year …
Thanks for sharing xx
He’s the best, I really am so lucky!
Thanks for reading Tracey x