My first camera was a red Kodak pocket Instamatic. I remember holding it between my hands like a ham sandwich. I took a lot of over-exposed pictures of people with no foreheads, or feet. When I was in my late teens I started taking photographs again, only this time around everyone got to keep their heads. My camera –– a vintage Minolta –– was a gift from my best friend, Nicholas. It belonged to his grandfather, and remains one of the loveliest gifts I’ve ever received. I took hundreds and hundreds of pictures with that camera –– gargoyles of Prague, the banks of the River Thames, bakeries of Old Montreal –– many of which I still have. A lot of my pictures are in albums, but most live in boxes, a project for another day. Some of the the best photos I’ve taken have been on my iPhone, but I do sometimes feel nostalgic for the weight and substance of my beautiful Minolta. Or the digital Nikon that came next. I miss handing in ten rolls of film on the heels of a holiday, and waiting three days, a week even, to get my prints back. There were always dozens of blurry or over-exposed duds, but those three or four gems, were well worth the wait. Regardless of what we shoot on though, I still think it’s important to print the odd picture from time to time. Photographs illuminate a moment in time, they capture a gesture, a feeling, a light. We all carry memories within us, but there’s something about seeing them in a wallet, on a fridge or in a 5 x 7 frame that can be quite comforting.