i wasn't really a big fan of photography until one of my friends found his old family camera. It was a canon film slr and he brought with him to school during summer classes of '09. since i was with him most of the time, i was constantly exposed to all his ravings and rantings about his new hobby. I stayed with him inside computer labs surfing the net for great pictures that he said he would try to do. I would watch him holding the slr while feeling a sense of happiness while he talks about it and his recent photo-adventures. He would show me his deviantart page where his latest pictures are published. It wasn't too long that I was drawn into his hobby.
fast-forward to the start of the semester... another friend of mine bought a Holga CFN 120 (the famous lomography camera). What attracted me to it was the fact that it was a toy camera and it was capable of producing wonderful results (as i researched on the net). I was exposed to all the lomo stuff around the net: light-leaked pictures, multi-exposures, cross-processing, expired films, slide films or what have you. It was then that i decided that i would buy one for myself. come to think of it, i was gonna try photography but not seriously since i was getting a toy camera.
So i researched on the net on which to buy. I picked the fisheye because it looked otherworldly. i remember asking my friend to accompany me to hidalgo, quiapo because i heard that cameras are cheap there. So we went to hidalgo and visited all the shops and to my dismay almost all of them didn't sell or wasn't even familiar with the fisheye except for one shop. I bought it immediately after seeing it and i still can remember the happy feeling of holding it in my hands for the first time. I bought an expired film with it and went home with a smile on my face.
My days with the fisheye were bittersweet. my very first roll was underexposed and it was my first experience of the unpredictability of expired films in the negative way. But on most days i would get good results. I took it to bangkok with me, I took to school with me, and I took it to drinking nights with me. I tried all the tips and tricks that the internet showed me (lazy john, salty single, carribean colors, off the hook, etc.). It was fun to say the least.
However, I was limited to a B-setting, and a normal setting (aperture: f/8, shutter: 1/125) so i couldn't quite use it always. When i was out shooting with my friends with their SLRs i would always feel inferior because their cameras had more capabilities as compared to mine. At times like those, i would just sit and look at my camera with an unsatisfied look on my face. plus, the time came when it just sat sitting on my bookshelf without me noticing it for a long time. soon, after 3 months of usage, i finally sold it to someone starting out in lomography.
and that was it...though i never regret buying the fisheye. i will never forget where i started with. it was truly a very different experience
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