Grandfather's Camera
By Yves Semana Gisubizo
The object that I found worth being represented in our cabinet is this old camera passed down to me by my father passed down to him by my grandfather.This as you can see in the picture, is an old fashioned and less functional camera from those old years. During the living time of my grandfather, this is probably one of the biggest technological equipment that surprised everyone around. And this is the main reason why it was of a very huge significance to him and to his entire family.
He used this camera like twice a year, and the rest of the time it could be kept in a very preservative place very far away from anybody else so they could not destroy it. He mostly used it when he was getting married to different wives as he had all four of them.
Whenever I look in our photo albums at home and see some of the pictures that were taken by this genius grandfather, I always miss him as I never got a chance to meet him. The photos that were taken by this camera seem to be not the best ones for this world full of advancing technologies, but if you look at the angles and how much skills they put in trying to capture the best photo they could, it’s really amazing to view. The photos are not so beautiful but they are very skillfully taken. This equipment being one of the things with the greatest value my grandfather had, he wanted it to live forever within his descendants. My grandfather had two daughters and one son, who is my Dad. He died of a car accident. Before he died he had revealed to my Dad where the camera was always safely kept so that during the time when he’s gone, my Dad could take it over and preserve it. My Dad did that and that’s the reason this is still here.
In my family, it’s me and my two sisters. None of them is a big fan of technology or fancy stuff except me who grew up loving to be a technological and magical oriented guy. When my Dad saw that I had much passion for musical and technological instruments such as the piano, computers, etc that’s when he started introducing me to this beautiful and significant tool. He started teaching me how to use and most importantly how to keep it safe.
Later in my 15, I started being the one to play around with taking some pictures during wedding ceremonies and other ceremonies like graduations that happened at home. This is a very easy camera to learn how to use as long as you are open minded and curious enough to explore how it works. I became very proud of using it around and I asked him to give it to me. He handed it to me because he saw how much I loved it. He told me all that history about and I promised to preserve it as safe as I can and to go with it everywhere I go. That’s why I took it when I went to India in 2018 and I brought it here. Unfortunately, it no longer works because I can’t figure out what’s wrong with its battery and it’s hard to find another one to replace it.