I’m from Preston, Lancashire, a northern city I became more fond of after leaving four years ago. I now live in Glasgow, and every single day I fall a little more in love with its charm.

 

Like a lot of teenagers, I listened to The Smiths far too much and carried a disposable camera everywhere. I studied digital photography as an A-Level at college which I loved, but I’ve always much preferred film. Nothing beats that feeling of picking up your prints, the anticipation that you might get some absolute belters, or maybe just 10 blank frames.

 

After disposables, I moved onto various point-and-shoot cameras. My first SLR was a Canon AE-1. I watched YouTube tutorials to figure out how to use it and took it to Vienna, where I got some beautiful (if occasionally blurry or over/underexposed) shots.

 

Sadly, my step-grandad’s dad, Bob, passed away during COVID. He’d spent a big portion of his adult life travelling the world: Australia, New Zealand, parts of Asia, even the Antarctic. When he died, his sons came to sort through his belongings. This included an entire room filled with boxes of camera gear, photographs, transparencies, and a projector. It was incredible. He’d captured so much, seen so much, and then he was gone, and it was up to others to decide what to do with it all. Photography had been his hobby, but the dedication and creativity were undeniable.

 

My step-grandad let me keep a bag of cameras. I’ll admit, they sat untouched for a while. But after moving to Glasgow, I took them to a repair shop to see what worked. The Pentax K1000 caught my eye, and that’s the one I’ve been using ever since. It’s not fancy or flashy or expensive - it’s simple, I know how to use it, and every time I shoot with it, it feels more instinctive. It feels like mine. There’s something beautiful about using someone else’s camera, knowing they also took stunning photographs with it. If it could talk, the stories it would tell. I could only dream of visiting as many places as this camera has.

 

Over the past few months, I’ve been documenting both the beautiful and brutalist - anything that catches my eye.