I’d been hearing that the kids were all into vintage digital cameras these days because they covet the noise and imperfect colours. Back when those cameras were being released (circa 2005 I’d say) the big trend was for expired film. The colours were off and the processing was unpredictable. My friend Gareth even buried his film in the garden for a year to see what would happen to it.

A photo I took in 2007 on a point-and-shoot camera with “very expired Kodak PJ400 film”.

As I traded up my point-and-shoot digital cameras to a decent Nikon DSLR I realised that taking a “perfect” photo was now really easy. The camera would lock in a decent focus, exposure and white balance and the new Adobe Lightroom would finish the job. These weren’t necessarily good photos, of course. But they were technically spot on.

And so I found myself pointing my perfect digital camera through the dirty distorted viewfinder of a cheap 1950s camera for about five years, making digital photos that frankly looked like shit and were all the more interesting for it.

I never did it for nostalgic reasons (I hate nostalgia - it’s a disease that should always be fought). I did it for the same reason I like to put a 1970s manual lens on my current DSLR. It slows me down, forces me to work with the machine, and produces images that can surprise me.

Does it amuse me that the crappy digital camera in my attic are now coveted items? Yes, hugely. But I totally get it. Stuff is too perfect and that makes it boring. Broken, imperfect things are where it’s at.