Matt Douglas Bailey

I bought my first camera when I was 13 years old, with money I’d saved from my paper round. The camera in question was an Olympus OM10 - as promoted by famous celebrity-photographer, David Bailey, and I remember my dad arriving home from work one evening with two shiny boxes, one containing the camera body and the other, the lens.

A newly acquired camera offers the potential for unlimited adventure; seeing places and things for the very first time, and seeing old and familiar places and things in ways you’ve never seen before. 

From the day I took delivery of those shiny boxes, I photographed everything that happened in my life - and in the lives of my friends and family. Then, every once in a while I’d send off a postage-paid envelope with an exposed 35mm cartridge for processing at a lab, who-knew-where. Miraculously, a week later, the prints would be returned with…a replacement film. And so the journey would continue.

These days, I mostly shoot digital, but I will never fully abandon the magical ritual of photographing on film - and the great sense of anticipation of the arrival of the prints: sometimes heartbreak; sometimes joy. At least now, happily, I’m a little more consistent with quality, though still just as childishly delighted by the process.