Through the Old Viewfinder

“That is will never come again, is what makes life so sweet.”

– Emily Dickinson

I bought an old camera in June. We were wandering the aisles of an antique store in Mittagong in Southern Highlands, aimlessly and absent-mindedly, until I was asked if I had seen the little display with all those old cameras. I jumped. I wanted to buy a vintage camera for a long time, but the thought was buried in my head under the pile of more urgent things to do, so I did not even connect that desire to own a piece of old photographic equipment and the fact that you can get it at an antique shop, right here, right now. But there I was, surrounded by large glass cabinets filled with hundreds of cameras aiming their lenses at my amused face. Kodak Brownies, Canons, Zenits, Leicas, Nikons…

I picked an old Praktica IV. The reason I chose it from the crowd of other similarly-priced vintage pieces was that I felt a strange tug when I looked at it. I wondered who owned it for the last fifty years, how it made it here to Australia, what kind of snapshots were taken with it, how many smiley faces were captured on film, what memories were saved in family albums. Or was it a camera that travelled somewhere far with its owner, documenting the new adventures?

I will never know.

I love looking through the viewfinder. It’s as if I stepped back in time, as if the world around me is one vintage photograph from the sixties, scratches, muted colours, vignette and all.

Somewhere far, far away from here, there is a cabinet full of old cameras that captured my childhood. I do not think I will ever be able to hold them again. But this Praktica that I picked from hundreds of others somehow builds a little bridge between now and the past. Between the girl who had a broken lens as a toy (I still remember how it felt in my eight-year-old hands) and the girl who has a cabinet full of digital Canons and shiny new lenses.

I will buy some film one day.