The year is 2004. Arsenal are invincibles, the Arctic Monkeys are fresh on the radio waves, Facebook is still a student-only affair and ‘Selfie’ was still 9 years away from becoming incarnated in the English language.
Stumbling out of Oceana in the early hours of a cold, wet winter morning after an evening of WKD and wondering the eclectic collection of colourfully themed rooms of this former nightclub heavyweight, I begin the long walk back to my salvation – Lupton halls of residence in Headingley.
As the Chinese proverb goes; ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’. Well, on my first step I accidentally/serendipitously kicked something that slid across the weather-beaten Woodhouse Lane pavement like an ice hockey puck.
Lifting my bowed head, I wander over to inspect the puck, which in fact, turns out to be a pouch. My intrigue peaks as I retrieve the pouch from the concrete. Looking around, I see no one coming to rescue the pouch from the drunk fresher about to walk off with it.
So that’s what I did. I walked off with it. You’d have done the same.
Inside the pouch was a small, silver, metallic object of rectangular form. An item that these days everyone carries around in their pocket. In this bygone era, these devices were a thing of rarity.
Inside my new pouch was a Canon IXUS digital camera.
I felt an immediate bond with my new camera, as a student of Product Design, I loved the way it felt, the neatness, the weight, the cool gunmetal finish. What I was yet to realise was that this particular model came complete with a broken screen.
A week or so later, I’m back in Nottingham for the Winter term break and eagerly en route to collect my camera from the camera repair shop.
Upon collection, I’m relieved to find that this thing works like a charm! It blew my mind and I loved wandering the countryside of my hometown snapping cows, flowers, ducks, churches, landscapes, snow, even litter. The thing came into its own on nights out with friends, where no one had anything like it and many wished I didn’t either.
My love affair with Photography had begun.
