When I first discovered film photography in 2021, it was driven by one thing: nostalgia. My parents were in out of town for a few days, and I'd discovered some old family albums I was curious to check out. What started with a walk down memory lane turned into me scrounging through my dad's camera bags. Then came out 3 cameras: an old Nikon F3, an F70, and a Yashica point-and-shoot.
Yashica MF-2 Super
The Yashica MF-2 is not a flashy point-and-shoot camera, which means you won't see it in Kendall Jenner's hand at the Met Gala. Unlike its cousin, the T4, it doesn't have a shiny Zeiss lens to brag about, or the looks of the Electro 35 GSN. Chris Gampat from thephoblographer.com even called it "The Worst Camera We've Tested".
But to me, it wasn't bad. My family had this camera since I was a baby. While my Dad liked his Nikons, Mom always captured family moments to look back at on this Yashica.
Mom once dressed me up for this fashion show happening at the Indian Club in Qatar. I think I look like the Grinch, but fashionable.
Clearly, many childhood moments were captured on this Yashica. The camera is rather rudimentary. With no frills comes the lack of ability to focus, to set aperture, or shutter speed. It comes with a basic DX code reader which can detect the film speeds from 100-400. The lens is a 38mm at an f/8 aperture in most cases, unless you force it to open to an f/3.8 (more on that later). There is a flash, a basic light-meter which will light up a red light in cases when you're in a dimly lit situation, a 10 second timer crank (the one on mine doesn't work). It also has a screw mount for cable releases, if you're the kind of person who likes to put your point-and-shoot on a tripod for some reason.
2 years ago, I knew that this camera wouldn't be fit for some "real" work, I had the F3 for that (in which I put some expired film the first time I shot with it), or even the F70. But I still wanted to use the Yashica. So I decided to put cheap film in it to give it a go. The first time, I put some Fomapan 100 in it while the F3 got the Portra 800 treatment. Of course, this was the right decision, Fomapan 100 was the cheapest film stock available at Khalifa Art Center: the go-to spot for film lab in Qatar.
Misadventures with ProImage 100
After a few more months, I put another relatively film cheap film stock in it: Kodak ProImage 100. I mostly used the camera for capturing candid-ish life from 2021 to 2022 when I was in Qatar. And I mostly used ProImage for this case. The first was Bhargav's 24th birthday, and the next was an Analog Qatar meet-up. I don't think I like the way the scans look - too warm, which explains why these photos typically haven't seen the light of day ever.
I'll be real: these pictures are a dumpster fire. I made the grave error of using this 100 speed film stock at night. Maybe it was the scanning or the film doesn't handle low light so well. The warm color cast was not the "film look" I was promised.
A second chance - an experiment
After a few months, I tried the ProImage again in the Yashica. This time, many photos would be in the day. But not in the start.
In late December 2021, I met with my friend Anusha, who would soon fly to Canada to pursue her MBA.
On February 27th 2022, a photography exhibition took place in Souq Wakrah. My friend Khalid was curating the exhibition, and my photo was featured! The one below is the photo. It's from Souq Wakrah as well, during an earlier photo shoot. Blue hour skies are always nice for backdrops.
Of course, the photo featured at the exhibition was taken on Nikon F3 and Portra 800. Portra 800 is too expensive of a film stock to put into a point-and-shoot like this.
I took some photos of friends on the point-and-shoot. Somehow, these turned out slightly nicer than my first roll of ProImage at night.
I got some Ektar 100 for Khalid on his birthday. Here is holding it with Alwaleed and Mohammed having a chat in the back.
In early summer of 2022, my friends and I decided to do a quick afternoon photo-walk in Old Al Ghanim. This is an older part of Doha, and has many buildings possibly built in the 80s-90s. The area houses many migrant workers, many from Afghanistan.
This day, I took some photos of the area and of its inhabitants. Finally, I would shoot ProImage in the day. To make matters more interesting, I decided to experiment with this camera. Earlier in the post, I mentioned that you could force two apertures out of the Yashica MF-2 Super. The thing is, without flash, the camera sticks to f/8, with a wide depth of field. If you pop the flash up, it switches to a bigger aperture of f/3.8. Since the shutter is mechanical, if you remove the batteries and pop the flash, you can trick the camera into opening up the aperture for photos without the flash firing. This forces it to gather more light in every frame, and in turn you get a smaller depth of field. That's exactly what I did.
Seeing a bunch of photographers walking around with their cameras is probably a rare sight for the people we met here. Still, most smiled and posed for their photos to be clicked.
While the US has a lot of F-150s and Tacomas, among the blue collar workers in Qatar often prefer smaller pickups like this Nissan here.
This has to be my favorite photo from the whole roll. The focus turned out to be tack sharp, and ProImage did really well with the colors, only slightly glazing them with a warm undertone. The subjects too look interesting and are framed by the green foliage and the pickup truck.
I spoke to the Afghani folks here and made friends with them - everyone likes a good photo! Now some of these photos turned into some really nice frames, while some others are obviously out of focus. Coupled with the fact that the camera offers no focusing aid or control, the lack of documentation on the internet on this camera leaves you guessing focus when it comes to taking photos.
Later, with a handful of frames left in the roll, I hastily finished the roll quickly one morning. Looking back at some of these photos, I can really appreciate how different Qatar is from the US. You don't notice this stuff otherwise, just look at the Arabic signboards!
The Redemption
Things definitely changed for my Yashica when I came to the US. I discovered another cheap film stock: Fuji Superia 400. Maybe it wasn't just that. A switch in me had also flipped. With the ample amount of socializing we did in grad school, I was gifted with a glut of opportunities to document my life. All of a sudden, the little plastic point-and-shoot would get a lot of usage.
In February, 2 of some of my closest friends from Simon have their birthdays. With my love for documenting moments out in the open, I brandished this camera from party to party.
The first of these parties was a gathering for Neeraja's birthday, at her pretty apartment in Genesee Hall. Her eclectic mix of friends from undergrad and grad school was invited.
The second was Harshit's, whose party was at our apartment at first, and then at our friends', on Elmerston st.
I quickly got them developed. What a fun time! One of the pictures from Neeraja's party is now her MacBook lock screen photo.
Now, I love photography as an art and taking pictures of pretty landscapes and cities. But there is something in the photos of the people in life that surpasses that, somehow. Looking back at photos of friends, the moments come alive again. I've printed many of the photos taken on this camera, put them in albums in my living room. Whenever I have people visit, the albums are one of the first things guests pick up. Friends who are in the photos laugh about those moments. The ones that aren't in them ask about the stories behind. I felt something special when I went through those family albums back in July 2021. None of these photos really required a fancy camera with a fancy lens, but somehow a simple plastic point-and-shoot evoked so much emotion. It begs the question, does a camera need to be technically fantastic to be a capable machine?
A good read my guy! I love the nostalgic feel that the film cameras gives off, quite cozy. I read somewhere that photos are windows to our pasts, something to look back on. Keep clicking my dude good stuff