The Dismantling

Before the rise of digital cameras, my family, like many others, owned a film camera. It belonged to my parents, and my dad kept it safe in his wardrobe for most of the year and would only bring it out for special occasions, vacations and Hari Raya. Being little kids, my sister and I were always eager when our dad took it out and loaded in a fresh new roll of film. Sometimes we would request that we do the refilling. Habitually, he would carry a tripod along so we could set the camera on a timer when taking photos as a family.

The most notable time when the camera saw the light of day was during Hari Raya Puasa, where we tend to burn through a couple of rolls of film. At every relative's house we visited, we would take numerous photos together with their family. There will be one default photograph where everybody is inside it. From then on, it's freestyle and wild. One picture of the men and boys, another of the ladies and girls. The candid shots, the pose-like-a-model snaps, etcetera. It was a familiar ritual before ending a visitation that sometimes takes up to an hour. Nobody complained. Everyone wanted their camera to snap the same scenes. Even now, despite having modern technology where one can instantly share images across the globe, people still desire to own the moment with their cameras.

A portrait of me dressed in the Malay traditional costume during Hari Raya. Year: Unknown.

My sister and I joined in the photography fun as well at some point. No, it was not the juncture when my love for photography truly blossomed. That would be a story for another time. Anyway, we each bought ourselves a camera after saving up. It was exhilarating to own such a piece of technology as kids, but as thrilling as it was, we could not be too trigger-happy with the shutter buttons—our parents made clear that they were not paying for the development of our films. Talk about parenting done right.

Some of our family photo albums.

Not long after, we started noticing cameras with screens on their back, zoomable live displays, video recording capability, and the best feature of all, media that can be deleted and retaken. It blew my mind.

A couple of years later, after virtually every relative started using digital cameras with those brilliant features, my family was the only one left still carrying film canisters. I could not understand why we were so slow to adopt the new format, but thinking back now, either my dad was taking time to save up, or it was just his pure reluctance to accept new technology—or it could be both.

The Canon Digital IXUS 80 IS became our first family digital camera, boasting all the bells and whistles one would expect of a compact shooter at the time. It served us well into the early age of smartphones before eventually failing to function. We never knew the cause or attempted to have it repaired since smartphone cameras were getting better and much more convenient at the time.

Left: My sister’s still-functioning Samsung EX2F.

Right: The non-functioning Canon Digital IXUS 80 IS.

I decided to keep the defunct camera without thinking about what I would do with it. Somehow, it was just sad to toss it into the dumpster after enabling us to capture and immortalise moments of our lives in the early days. It took me more than a decade, but I was finally inspired to create something to remember it by.

Bonus

Development of my last roll of film in 2016 although the last photo taken was taken around 2005-2006.

My younger brother. It’s a golden photo because our very first computer was also captured here.