Searching for my Cameraman

You have to wonder why it’s important for me to go searching for my “Cameraman”. My parents were travel addicts and dragged me kicking and screaming to far-away regions of the world. By the age of eight, I’d accrued more passport stamps and booster shots than the average war correspondent. I knew the difference between Dengue and Tsetse fever and always kept my pocket money jammed deep inside my underpants. 

They just couldn’t quit. Even as a young adult, I’d be hopping on planes to spend Christmas in some remote, malaria-ridden hut in Southeast Asia. And throughout it all, my dad would be holding up his Olympus OM-1 camera saying, “Cheer up, Sport. Now go stand next to your mother in front of that baobab tree and give us a smile.” I always referred to him as my “Cameraman,” even though he only took stills.

My Cameraman’s old photos

I have large Tupperware containers stuffed with old photos documenting the travel abuse inflicted upon me by my “Cameraman” throughout a three-decade window. As a result, I was vehemently opposed to cameras of all stripes for most of my 43 years of existence.

Eventually, cancer forced my father to let his passport expire. But even as he lost the ability to travel to an upstairs washroom, he was conspiring to visit some old friends in Qatar. “Don’t sweat it, son, especially now that there’s a direct flight from Toronto to Doha. I might even go first class.” 

How we make memories

Despite my best intentions, I kept on travelling without my mom and dad. I even started taking my wife and son on overseas adventures. My father would be proud to see the three of us sweltering in customs lines. He’d appreciate us spraining our ankles on mountaintop paths. We even argue over the precise origins of our diarrhoea. But he wouldn’t be so happy to know that these moments have slipped by without being captured on film or SD card.  I carried on my father’s tradition of travel, but I didn’t have it in me to replace him as my “Cameraman”. Thus, the trips I’ve taken with my wife and son are confined to memory alone. 

Giving away my dad’s OM-1

Shortly after my father died, I helped my mom sort through his belongings. One afternoon in the garage, she handed me a threadbare leather satchel housing a beaten and brassed Olympus OM-1. “Do you want to take this back to Ontario?” she asked. “What am I going to do with an antique film camera,” I said, as I placed the satchel in a box destined for the Salvation Army. How was I to know that a few years later I, too, would be battling cancer and through that experience would take up film photography as a source of meaning and purpose?  

Discovering film photography

My health challenges have slowed me down. My expired passport sits in a dresser drawer. It’s been years since I’ve jammed a wallet into my underpants as I stepped from a taxi into the flurry of a foreign street. But now when my wife or son make a move, be it to the local park or swimming pool, I’m on them like flies on a water buffalo, ready to capture the moment on film. I’ve taken on the role of being their cameraman. I’ve even got into camera collecting, something my father would think was wasteful and unnecessary. “Don’t waste your money, son, buying the same pair of shoes twice.” 

If only he knew that I have a collection of Leica cameras and lenses worth a small fortune. But you know where this story is going… Of course, I would trade all my precious Leicas for my dad’s old OM-1. If only I could hold the camera that seized in time so much of my youth, the camera that I discarded so quickly when it was handed down to me. 

It’s my Cameraman I’m missing

In my heart-of-hearts, that’s not the trade I’m really searching for, is it? The OM-1 likely lives on in the hands of someone else. What’s truly gone from this earth isn’t a camera but my “Cameraman”, the person who watched out for me through a viewfinder, encouraged me to smile when I felt down, and accompanied me on the most trying of journeys. 

Maybe one day my son will think of me as his cameraman. Although, if I asked him today, he’d likely call me a pestering paparazzo. Yet, he’s clever enough to hold on to my cameras. Not necessarily for sentiment, but for market value.

Boy looking through window
My son, Kipling

If you enjoyed this article and would like to see more of my photos, you can find me at Leica Fotografie International and Instagram.


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28 COMMENTS

  1. This was truly a beautiful read. Thank you for sharing such a relatable slice of your life.

    In my family I am the keeper of records and memorabilia. I have my great grandfather’s Zeiss Ikon Nettar, my grandpa’s Altix and my dad’s FED 3. I have since added quite a few of my own to the collection I hope to one day pass on to my sons.

    As a photographer myself, it gives me great joy knowing that, as the men before me, I still use the same tools to continue capturing the journey of our lineage. Having a tangible relic from your ancestors helps bridge the gap otherwise filled by imagination.

    Having said that, do know that your discovery of what it meant to him, the realization of how he felt, is exactly what would make your dad smile today. Tools come and go, get broken and replaced, but the understanding of the man behind the lens is what truly matters. He would be proud!

    • Thanks for writing this. It was very well said. It sounds like you are doing an excellent job at being the keeper of records and memorabilia for your family. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it in the years to come.

  2. This article really rang true for me. I just lost my father in December but feel fortunate to have his Minolta x570. But even more fortunate is that he scanned all of the family photos so I have the images of my childhood.

    • Peter, I’m happy this rang true for you. I’m sorry to hear about your father’s recent passing. It’s so nice that you have the camera and the scans.

  3. Thank you so much, David, for sharing this. While not much of a traveller, my father was an enthusiastic photographer as well. He left me more than 20.000 slides after his death some years ago. And an Olympus OM-4 Ti which I have not given away. I just took it on a trip to Italy, you will soon read about it here. But, as you write, it’s not the cameras, it’s the people who are so important for our memories. I hope you can find / have found a way to cope with your loss. All the best for you. Jörg-Peter

    • Jörg-Peter, thanks for posting this. I’m happy you were able to keep your dad’s OM-4. I’ll look out for piece on the Italy trip.

  4. David, this is a tremendous article which rings a lot of bells for me. There can be no greater inspiration, in photography or anything else, than one which goes from a parent to a child. My father was an excellent photographer, but he did not have much time or resources to develop that during most of his life as he was pre-occupied with career and family. My very first article for Macfilos, ten years ago next month, was about one of his cameras, a Balda Super Baldina, which he purchased 85 years ago in January 1940 (the bill of sale featured in the article) and the photographs which he took with it. That camera featured in a later article on Macfilos which I wrote after I had the camera successfully repaired. Thanks Mike, for linking another article (last link above) which I wrote about photos which my father took with another camera in Paris and Dublin in 1939, just weeks before the commencement of World War II. Those photos mean a lot to me.

    Before he passed away in 2002, my father knew that I had developed an interest in photography, just like my older and younger brothers, and that I was a member of Dublin Camera Club. When he retired in 1981 we bought him a Bolex 8mm cine camera and he spent many happy hours in the early years of his retirement making films of his grandchildren, which my older brother has now transferred to CDs, so that we can view ‘the way we were’.

    He would be astonished with the extent of my involvement with photography these days, not only as a photographer, but also on the admin side of things as a Chair of a Photo Museum and VP of a camera society and as an author and erstwhile historian of sorts. The Doha reference in your article also rang a bell for me, as I spent 5 years working in Doha, starting about 19 years ago. I have a photo taken in Doha in 2006, by my wife, showing our grandson Joe standing in front of an ostrich, not astride one like yourself. I will share it with you through Mike.

    I have a saying that ‘family comes first’ and family connections are the most precious and important ones that we have. I have a large collection of cameras, including many Leicas, but, for me, by far the most important item that I have is my father’s Super Baldina, as images of all of us have passed through the lens of that camera, framed and focussed by my father, my ‘cameraman’.

    William

    • William, many thanks for the lovely comment, which accompanies the article so well. I hope the Super Baldina stays in the family for many generations to come.

  5. Thanks David.

    It’s a beautiful story, beautifully written.

    Having moved around a fair amount as a child I can sympathize.

    I sold my Olympus OM2 many years ago and have regretted it ever since. Downtown Chicago, under the “L” tracks, is an old camera shop (Central Cameras) that sells preowned cameras, equipment and film. Yes film! They had an OM2 in the window the other day when I walked by, but were sadly closed. I need to pay them a visit soon to find out whether that OM2 needs a new home.

  6. Wonderful article; succinct and utterly absorbing, too.

    Coincidentally, my father was also named ‘David Smith’ and he wrote in a masterfully concise manner. He died in 1999 and I have all of his Kodachrome slides made on family trips with a 35mm Balda folding camera that he captured in WW2 as a GI in Germany. He used that camera well into the 1970s (when I got my first Leica) and it rests on a bookshelf alongside my mother’s Kodak 127.

    I have photographed my wife, children, and grandchildren endlessly much to their annoyance but, occasionally, appreciation. Hopefully, these photos and my Leicas will be retained for future generations to raise questions about their ancestors.

  7. David,
    This was an emotional read on many levels for me. My cameraman wielded a Pentax KM and, before that, a Minolta A5 rangefinder. The boxes of Kodachrome slides from those days are many, which is a gross understatement. I, too, now revel in my role as the family photographer and as a Leica collector. But even though all my boys are young adults, they are never short of a quip when I appear with the camera. Maybe one day they might have a change of heart as you did. Thank you so much for this story. I am extremely lucky to have my dad’s cameras near to hand. Still, I would much rather have him.
    All the best.
    Mark Catto

    • Mark, I’m happy the piece resonated with you. I now have to carry around chocolate coins to use a bribes for photos of my son. Happy shooting

  8. Dear David, a wonderful article! My cameraman was my father too. He had, and I still have it, a Leica IIIf + Summar 50 and it took him „minutes“ to have the camera ready and have found the right perspective. But using his camera is always a special moment! Best regards Ulrich

    • Ulrich, I’m happy to hear that you still have your dad’s camera. The IIIf and Summer 50 — what a great combo!

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