My day job as a creative director has me dealing with photographers, directors, talent across many different jobs. Collaborating with all these different talented people is an amazing experience that I am truly grateful for. My son often sees me drawing, writing, talking and directing creative people and scenarios every day. I also spend a great deal of personal time taking images for the pure joy of the photographic art form. So it was only natural for my son to get curious, asking “Dad why do you take photos?” and “how do you take a photo with that camera?”.
A new experience
It’s such a nice feeling to have my son take interest in something I am doing, so I thought it would be best to set him on the traditional path. The path of film.
I decided the best way to teach him would be to learn how to take photos like I did, on an old school SLR (not so old school back in the day). Learning the basics of loading a film, setting the ISO, selecting the right shutter speed and choosing the aperture is an important set of fundamentals. It’s also fun to tinker with stuff.
The camera of choice was the simple Yashica FX-3 Super 2000 loaded with Fujicolour Superia X-tra 400 film. The lens, my Carl Zeiss Tessar 45mm f2.8 lens.
My son loved the camera and was super curious learning about loading the film and tinkering with all the “fancy bits” on the camera.
With the camera set and a sunny day ahead of us, we set out to a few spots in Singapore. We started early, we had a ride on the cable car, shot a few more shots midday, than settled in the evening. Not seeing what we had captured was both exciting and slightly frustrating in this day and age of instant gratification. But shooting film made the shooting experience a more considered and rewarding time.
The shots
All in all, we took a few decent shots. We learnt the basics and most importantly we had a bit of fun.
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Thanks for reading!
My grab&go Yashica when i just need a 35/2.8 (Yashica ML) Lens to shoot it all. I do love my Contax Gear, but my very simple FX-3 Super 2000 gets the Job done. 😉 I do love simple, mechanical SLRs, because one could shoot even without the Battery, LR44, being needed for the Lightmeter. Thanks for the Post.
Kind regards, and stay safe!
Marc
Thanks for commenting. This was a bit of a refresher for me going back to film but it was very enjoyable and surprisingly easy to come back to. Stay safe
Keep up the encouragement ! My 6 year comes out shooting with me sometimes. She likes to use an instant camera so we can look at her results when we get back home. Nice sunset.
Thanks. The good old Instax my son shoots with occasionally. Definitely more instantaneous than my trusted Yashica.
One of those cameras I’ve been thinking of getting for ages,must do it once lockdown is over
Yeah, it’s cheap and great. Happy searching (after the lockdown)
This is great, I hope he’s enjoying it.
He is. Thank you for the compliment.
I have that camera in my collection. I really only purchased it as an affordable way to use my Zeiss CY lenses, but it works very well and is quite compact. I tried to interest my son in photography in his early teens without success. I’m glad your son is showing interest.
Ha funny (side story) I was actually looking for a Bessa to use my Leica M glass and film, but settled on this since it was cheap and I had 2 C/Y mount lenses. My son is about trying all things so I know he will probably get bored one day. So I’ll keep him onto it while I can. Cheers
Love the stairs photograph.
A note, which you may freely ignore: I considered following you on IG, but the mosaic feed, while pretty to look at – when one does look at it (once? twice?) – really puts some people off due to the seemingly incoherent fragments spamming their feed. This is not meant as criticism, it’s simply a rando’s opinion on the matter.