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Julian Tanase Photography

My Minox journey continues…

Mere tools for creating our memories

Mere tools for creating our memories

Would it be paramount to use a certain camera or film or format, for your memories to be born? Would it matter so much if you shoot a Minox or a Nikon, or some expensive film? Should one use a Minox 9.2mm instead of a 35mm film? I would say that one doesn’t exclude the other, au contraire. Why not both of the best worlds? Of course, the same question arises when you think about 16mm vs Minox, or 35mm versus 120 medium format, but that goes only to show that one must carry and use whatever format or camera one is taking pleasure to shoot with. Memories are made by the images you shot, not by the format you used.

Of course, one format may have superior qualities over another, but that is just a technicality. If you want to have a photograph so to remember those good old days, a pinhole can give such memories, and you do not need an expensive camera to record it.

Minox IIIs – Ilford Pan F50

For instance, this one here, taken with a Minox while visiting a small village in the east of Europe somewhere. Technically, not a very good photo, but not the worst either. Nonetheless, for me it will always be the moment my daughter saw a dinosaur up close. I do not for a second believe that if this picture would’ve had been taken with say, a Leica, the memory would’ve been dearer.

For me this picture of average quality has a significance which is not given by the camera it was taken with, by its exposure or its quality of process. It is just there, a milestone in my personal journey. It may be anything in terms of photographic skill, but it is, most of all, a memory. And I believe this to be the role of a camera in my hands, which is to fix these milestones on the road I walk, together with loved ones.

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