#olympus om

The Camera: Olympus OM-2n

The City: Sydney

The Photograph: Sydney Harbour National Park, Manly to Spit.

My first camera I ever had was an Olympus OM-10. My Dad pulled it out of storage for me when I finished high school seven years ago and was travelling around America for a month. It was his camera, then mine. In that month I discovered film, began to learn what film was, its malleability, its allure. A lot of that trip with an Olympus OM-10 informs me now- how I like to develop in cities as I go. How I find a photographic release when I’m travelling that’s hard to hang on to when I return to normality (hence this exact project). How I only take photographs because I have friends to take photographs of. It was the first camera I fell in love with, the first camera that made me love, my first film companion. 

That is why, without any surprise, almost a decade later, I think the Olympus OM series is probably the best film series I’ve ever used. These cameras are half-cocktail sentimentality, half-cocktail sublime quality. The Olympus OM-10 was semi-automatic, which was the most beautiful induction into the camera vernacular of odd catch-calls that were also ?numbers- aperture, shutter speed, ISO. I still hold some of those photographs I took on that America trip in ridiculously high regard because I think they’re of beautiful in the way that only film can be beautiful. When the light leaks bust out on my OM-10 while hiking in the Japanese Central alps in 2014 (rolls lost, hearts won), I picked a light-meter broken OM-1 in Shinjuku at Chūko Camera Box (if you haven’t been, just go. It’s love at first sight) and was once again blown away. I then lugged that camera with love around Tokyo and to London. It’s still on that special spot with my shelf, but without a working light metre (for now), everyday use running around plugging and chugging is ever so slightly more a hassle by brain-light metering and using my phone (I have no genius yet to eyeball light meter perfectly unlike those true photography Gods amongst us). When it was time to drop some coin on my next Camera Crush, I walked into the OM-2n.

The Olympus OM-2n is the love-child of the OM-1 and later semi-automatic models like the OM-10. You can have it on fully automatic mode or manual mode. It was that ridiculous OM viewfinder that brings life next to your eyeball and somehow look more sexy (my only relatable crush is balking down the prism of a Pentax 6x7, but that’s not for now). The aesthetic to hold, to use, as with every OM I’ve caressed is too next level (so much so that Olympus morphed the OM design with their boxier digital look for their digital OM series). Man does that beast purr. And they’re a relative steal- I nabbed mine on the effective cheap on eBay, loaded her up with some Portra 160 and let her go.

The result is somewhere between true love and a subtle crush; a camera one neighbour over. She’s already packed in my bag for London.

First things first, and some examples above and below- the portrait capacity of this camera is beautiful. I feel this has largely to do with the viewfinder. Everything you read (Bigger! Brighter) is just so true. I almost think the human face has never looked so beautiful than down these viewfinders. It just does seem somewhat other worldly, but also really reflective of what you experience when you get your film back. The hold of the camera is weighted yet small, easy to grasp- and feels generally unrestrained in shoving into people’s faces or coyly peaking on them from around the corner.

I also think this is the first roll of film from Kodak Portra 160 that I truly truly now understand what people say when they talk skin-tones. Everything I’ve taken on this has been landscape and in cameras that either love that or a give a boxy version of a face. The portraits above and below are both afternoons shit-kicking around our house, all a little hungover, all a little drunk. There’s a wooziness that comes out of this camera (I’m using a standard Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 that came with- appreciably sharp but not mind-blowingly). The combination of this camera and that film doesn’t pop out and knock you in the face like the Olympus XA. It’s more calm, slightly more in a dream.

Also; as I’m sure you’ve noticed in the pic above- my camera has a bit of light-leaking. This post was actually going to be about Katoomba (Blue Mountains, I was there for a conference. Try Katoomba Brewing Co., get pissed, enjoy life) but there was light-leak on half the photographs, colour-culling them (I’ll likely tape-up for my upcoming rolls and see what that yields). But then also not on all, here’s one anyway I guess-

(3 degrees, no heater in an Air b’n’b near the main Katoomba drag). I’m wondering then if somethings gone wonky with the film because the majority of remaining photographs are fine with just the most coy light-leaking, which from an aesthetic point I’m moderately partial to. In terms of exposure reads, this camera was pretty on the money but surprisingly I had a mixed bag when the rolls came back (too used to floor to floor OM charm I suppose). Once again, this was a learning experience for me re: Kodak Portra, which I’ve tended to throw in and treat like a more malleable stock Fujifilm and then be grumpy when the results come back. This film shows seeds in soft shadows, in Golden Hour. There was something sun-baked about the photographs from early afternoon hiking the Manly to Spit, and then when I took it to Cockatoo Island mid-week when I blew off the lab that tip-toed on the edge of over-exposure (in my next roll I’m playing around with the aperture mode to see how results compare when I’m more focused in on the metering). But weren’t these days sun-baked under a too hot Aussie Sun? Weren’t these afternoons over-exposed?

And Manly to Spit? What is there to say mate. My mate Evie (our mate, really- and also, secretively, maybe a new roommate but keep that under your hat until you see more of her) came down to visit. I blew off the lab (seemingly an emerging theme) and hiked with her on a sun-drenched Winter’s arvo from Spit Bridge back to Manly. It blows my mind that you are in an National Park with so much natural history and Indigenous history with ripped out views across to Vaucluse, to the Ocean- and you’re still in Sydney. I can see the city peaking from the mountain tops. Just part of the ongoing narrative this year of truly falling in love with somewhere so unique. A mate has recommended that I grab some lads and a carton of beers and do the whole thing again in Summer, stopping in at each bay to swim and drink (and my, so maybe bays).

I’ll take the OM-2n along for old times sake.