TIBOR SPATH

I’m a genZ amateur photographer. My first camera was an Olympus Ecru from the ’90s, a quirky little design piece my aunt gave me when I was 19 to use it for travel. I had no idea back then what a rare and valuable object it was. That camera ended up in the Sahara desert in Morocco, at the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, in the jungles of Ghana, and at more than a few raves and chaotic parties all around europe. The fact that it’s a collector’s item never really mattered—my aunt said a camera isn’t meant to sit in a museum. It should be used. And that’s exactly what I did. Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with analog film photography.

It was my parents and close friends—many of whom studied at Vienna’s art universities—who nudged me toward more serious photography. One Christmas, I received my first proper camera: a vintage Olympus OM-2 from the 1970s, complete with a 35mm lens and a telephoto attachment. I still use it today. Over time, my setup grew to include a flash, studio light, off-camera strobe, and even a motor winder that sounds like it means business. These days, I develop my black-and-white film at home in my shared student apartment—sometimes with success, sometimes ending up with a completely blank or pitch-black roll.