# Relearning to See: A Personal History Through Lenses
Part 1: Seeing
#logbook #philosophy #media-memory
#NowPlaying
open.spotify.com/playlist/5IDXlQvt2KgPlbATCub9nz
This piece is a look at how my eyes changed as the world around me — and my gear — did too. It's the first in a series on how my senses have changed over time — not biologically, but through habit, lenses, and memory. This one’s about sight. The way I see has always been in flux. I didn’t fully notice it until I started thinking of the moments my eyes changed — not my eyesight, but my seeing. This is a study of how it evolved. Or maybe how I’ve been trying to get back to it.
My First Camera: Olympus OM‑1
(You can find my full review at Lomography https://www.lomography.com/magazine/25041-olympus-om-1)
Owning the Olympus OM‑1 in my teens was transformative.
Using it taught me seeing through intention — slow, deliberate, analog.
There was a Time
50mm Zuiko → 35mm film → Wider Perspectives
Later, I added a 50mm Zuiko lens, then shot mostly on 35mm film. I wasn’t aiming for art — I was journaling with light & sound. But soon I realised my framing was microscopic, missing the context around each moment.
Alifu Dhaalu Atoll — wide open light, still one of the cleanest compositions I’ve taken.
I wanted bigger frames. My first wide-angle leap was with the Diana Mini, a toy camera that forced me into square frames and diptychs.
Square framing and diptychs with the Diana Mini — early experiments in visual storytelling. I started printing contact sheets, tucking them into boxes, walls, or drawers — a physical archive of timestamps from life. Our life.
Colour, Emotion, and Perception
I began to see that colour is how we perceive emotion. I wasn’t chasing colour theory — I just wanted fine grain and dynamic range. But that changed how I mentally saw.
Later, I learned that not everyone sees color the same — some literally perceive more or fewer shades due to genetic variation. That’s when I realized: my white balance is always going to be off. Because I’m seeing through layers — biological, mechanical, emotional.
From Objective to Subjective
I swapped lenses — first to a 28mm Zuiko — and suddenly everything changed.
HOLLA! — the kind of candid that taught me to stop composing and start noticing.
My compositions, my movement, the way I physically navigated space while shooting. I started shooting how things felt, not just how they looked.
This is the story of how a teenager started seeing the world through glass — and how that glass changed them.
The Struggle with Emotion and Neutrality
When I’m shooting street, my emotions often bleed into the shot — and that bugs me. I minored in photojournalism, inspired by Hala Gorani and Christiane Amanpour on CNN. I was taught to shoot raw, truthfully, and without narrative. But emotions complicate neutrality.
I still feel a responsibility — to be respectful in public, to let context speak, not impose meaning. Seeing is never simple. Maybe it shouldn’t be.
Thilafushi, 2011 — a migrant worker burning trash. He was promised a fibre-glass job but ended up here. I remember standing back, unsure how to shoot this without taking from him. It’s one of the first moments I felt the full weight of photojournalism — and my responsibility inside it.
Low Light, Hybrid Seeing
Shooting wide open at ƒ/0.95 gave me eyes in the dark. I could freeze street moments cleanly, even under dim sodium lights, with less noise than I ever could on film. It felt like a superpower — but one I still haven’t fully tapped into. Astrophotography is something I’ve yet to try properly.
Back then, ISO 200 and 400 film were my bread and butter. I knew their limits, pushed against them. But 500T — tungsten-balanced and moody — felt more like me. I liked how it rendered artificial light, and how the colours echoed my own moods.
Crossroads — shot on 500T. I keep coming back to this palette: cool tungsten, ambient mood, city breathing just under the lights.
Digital started as a necessity — I needed it for university. But I ended up enjoying the flow: doing film simulations, getting images straight-out-of-camera (SOOC), and uploading without needing to develop or scan. Film became something I reserved for specific moments. Still, I never chose sides. Both mediums give me something different. That’s why I’ve built a hybrid setup — simple, humble, flexible. I’m still learning autofocus. Still figuring out flash. There are projects I haven’t started yet. But I’m getting closer.
ƒ/0.95 — night shot on Instagram
ƒ/0.95 — a moment frozen sharp in low light. That lens let me see at night in ways I never could before.
These days, I sometimes mix it all — film, digital, spatial — into reels if I feel like sharing. But most of what I shoot still lives quietly on my hard drives or in print. Ten years is too short to compile them. Let’s give it another decade, I'm still learning to see.