The only camera I ever need

Ive not been in a good place for the last 18months. Cancer hurt the most important person im my life, my wife, and the toll that the treatment took on her, and us as a family has been hard, especially for my wife. She is utterly amazing and I’m so grateful that we are still with each other today, and for all the support we reveived.

So it wont come as a surprise that my photography and all projects have been on hold. I’ve hardly picked up a camera with any real purpose, or with my mind truly dedicated to thinking photography in over 18 months, that is until today.

Today I’m in Benllech with my Olympus OM-1 with 35mm f2.8 lens, a roll of fomopan 200 ASA film, and a yellow filter. Nothing complicated, no endless choices, no menus, no thought about battery levels or firmware updates. Just me, light, timing, and instinct.

And standing on the shoreline this morning, om1 in hand, I found myself thinking about all the cameras I’ve owned over the years, and I couldnt help feel “what a waste”.

There have been digital bodies with more features than I ever truly needed. Professional cameras built like tanks. Medium format systems that slowed photography down to a thoughtful ritual. Cheap plastic cameras that leaked light and somehow still produced photographs. Rangefinders. SLRs. Compacts. Old Soviet cameras and modern mirrorless precision tools. Even the humble Holga, with all its flaws and unpredictability, taught me something important about letting go of perfection.

I’ve loved many of them. Some were technically excellent. Some were frustrating. Some stayed with me for years, while others passed through my hands in a matter of weeks.

Like many photographers, I convinced myself at times that the next camera might somehow bring me closer to the photographs I wanted to make.

But today, in Benllech, with everything we as a family have been through, Im re-setting my mental health and realised again that the camera which feels most like an extension of me is still the OM-1.

Not because it is the “best” film camera ever made. Photography discussions are full of that kind of crappy argument, and I’ve no interest in it anymore. The OM-1 is simply the camera that disappears in use for me, it gets out of my way. Most people arent in the least bit interested or even notice it, its humble in apprearance and so very quiet.

It is small and light enough to carry around my neck all day without thought (my F3 wasnt) and quiet enough to remain unobtrusive (my Nikkormat ELs are brilliant but loud. Its mechanical enough to feel dependable (my FA is mint and younger but only works in manual). The shutter has a softness to it and the viewfinder, wow that 97% coverage viewfinder is bright and uncluttered, looking through it you feel part of the scene, its amazing really and has to be experienced.

There’s honesty in it.

The OM-1 has also taught me, perhaps forced me, to take responsibility for exposure metering. There is no safety net with a fully mechanical film camera. Whether working from Sunny 16, reading the light from experience, or metering carefully with a handheld meter, the responsibility is entirely mine. At first that can feel intimidating, but over time it becomes liberating. I dont use the meter often on the OM1, its accurte, but its a distraction watching the needle when I just want to concentrate on the image and nothing else.

So I tend to meter with a handeld and unless the light really shifts I just get on with it. I’ve stopped relying on the camera to rescue me and Ive statted to understand light instinctively. I now recognise how bright overcast differs from coastal haze, how shadows behave in late afternoon, how black and white film responds to contrast. Confidence develops frame by frame, roll by roll, until exposure stops being a calculation and becomes second nature.

I think that process changes the photographer as much as the photographs themselves.

With a manual camera, there’s really nowhere to hide. You look at the light. You make a choice. You press the shutter. The photograph succeeds or fails because of your own attention rather than the camera’s intervention. That’s partly why film photography still matters to me. Not because it is nostalgic or fashionable, but because it demands presence.

Over time, I’ve also come to accept something else that may be even more important in that the photographer must learn to be receptive to subject matter. My all time photography hero Henry Cartier Bresson taught us this, that a spontaneous photograph almost never happens when you demand it to. You cannot force life into unfolding for your benefit. The images that stay with us arrive unexpectedly, moments that include a gesture, a glance, a fleeting arrangement of light and movement that exists for a fraction of a second and then disappears forever. No second chances.

Ive learnt the hard way you have to be present in the moment to recognise it when it happens. John Free talked about being in the ‘third dimension’ or trance. That, I think, is the true discipline of photography. Being in the moment, walking without expectation yet remaining completely alert to possibility. The best photographs often appear quietly before us, and if we are distracted, overthinking, or buried in equipment, they pass by unnoticed.

A camera like the OM-1 encourages readiness. You have to know your settings, trust your judgement, and keep moving. There should be no delay between seeing and photographing. Your camera and your eye begin to work together instinctively. Eventually, the process becomes almost invisible. You stop thinking about the camera and start responding to the world.

This morning nothing dramatic was happening in Benllech, a good 2 hours had past and I hadnt ventured far from my chosen spot in that time and then from no where, a moment played out in front of me! It was unbelievable, laster less than a minute and I managed to get 7 frames out if the OM1 including manual bracketing! After the moment past, I was elated and I had to look up to the sky and thank the big man (Bresson that is) for the moment. I hope it was a reward from him for all the trying! In that moment photography felt completely alive for me, I felt alive again! Wow this is what it feels like, I had honestly forgotten! I was so glad to have had the opportunity to capture the moment on film and with my OM1. That’s the thing, I’ve spent years relearning, photographs do not come from spectacle they come from attention.

I usually have a 50mm prime lens on the OM1 but recently Ive tried to master the 35mm lens as a way of seeing. Wide enough to include context, narrow enough to avoid distortion I feel it makes you step closer to the world rather than stand apart from it. And thats another thing that has changed about me, I no longer worry about getting close to the subject, life is too short for that.

So after years of accumulating equipment and chasing different formats, there’s something deeply reassuring about carrying one small camera with one lens and one type of film. Constraints can feel liberating, instead of thinking about gear, you begin thinking about photographs again. Its a massive relief.

And maybe that’s the real point.

Photography has never truly been about cameras, cameras are only tools. What matters is whether a camera encourages you to pick it up, see clearly and photograph honestly.

When we were drowning in everything cancer, I obsessed over kit because thats all I could do at the time. Now that we are getting on with our lives, and I am getting out and about again, photography has found its way back to me, to the forefront of my life and Im so grateful for that.

Photography is my friend and has always been there for me, right from the first picture that I took of my grandfather when I was 7 years old, to 37 years later when photographing an elderly lady and her dog on a bench in Benllech, its a wonderful and dependable magic.

Photography is my safe place, and for me, the OM-1 does supports me better than anything else. Not because it is rare or prestigious, quite the opposite. It’s modest, practical and small in scale. It doesn’t try to impress anyone. It simply works. Even the small zuiko lenses have a purposeful and smooth focusing action to them.

Today, standing in Benllech with the rain coming off the sea and a roll of 200 ASA film advancing frame by frame, I realised that after all the cameras I’ve owned, all the systems I’ve tried, and all the technical debates that surround photography, this 54 year old film camera is the only tool this 54 year old amateur photographer needs.

Honestly that is totally true. Everything else is secondary. The photograph always begins with the photographer and nothing else.