Nikkormat FT 35mm Film Camera - 2023

“It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart and head.” Henri Cartier-Bresson.

In 1968 my Grandpa bought a Nikkormat FT, a robust film camera produced by the Japanese optics company Nippon Kogaku K.K., as a consumer version of the professional Nikon brand. A few years ago he passed it on to me so I could experience film photography as opposed to the digital photography I was used to. Although the first cameras I have ever used were those Kodak disposable film cameras, I somehow switched to digital… Spirit of the times? But using this camera really brought me back to this “sacred” feeling of triggering the shutter, exposing the film and counting down the roll. Recreating this object in Maya and Substance while holding it in my hands was indeed an interesting ritual of celebrating both practical and digital worlds.