I would like to think that when I was younger, I had the chance to play around with a disposable and figured out from there that I like cameras. I DID have a lot of disposable cameras and a point and shoot. I didn’t like taking photos unless needed.

What sparked my love of photography, however, was this hefty bulk of metal that shoots full manual using film. It was a gift from my father – call it an inheritance, if you will. He was a better photographer than I ever will be, and was his passion to pass the time while he was traveling overseas. He gave it to me shortly after I started my photography class at uni. He had another camera that was supposedly better – some Canon that also shoots film and looked a lot more sleek and less heavy, but he gave it to my aunt who visited from California at the time and also wanted to get into photography. He was apologetic that he only had that Nikon to pass on to me.

I didn’t mind. I loved this camera. I got into the habit of buying expired or black-and-white films, but since it was a time when digital was starting to pick up, developing films and digitising them was expensive. I started sticking to my DSLR more.

I got a Nikon digital SLR camera after my first digital point-and-shoot, however, so I used my old lens with my DSLR and made magic. I still look back to my trusty Nikon film camera and thank it for igniting whatever passion I have now.

In this gallery are: my tennis practice; Dei, Stacy, and hospital food; random items; my family in my brother’s home that was being built at the time; my little niece