I am Lena. I was born in 1968. I was an Instamatic kid. Instant and automatic. The images never turned out very nice.

After having searched for that elusive perfect shot for many a year, I have stopped looking. Not interested. Without flaws there's nothing to look at. Of course you could argue that those flaws are best shown with hi-end equipment. Drop me a line if you feel you want to convince me.

I settled for lo-fi features. I still like to just click and wind. But these days I carry an exposure meter, a stop watch and a ruler with me. Just to make sure. It's not all chance.

But it helps to have a camera that sees things in other ways than you do. I like to use cameras that are a bit like me: erratic, myopic, sometimes teary-eyed. It feels good to finally have found a poetry machine that's really portable.

This is me in 1971, toting a Kodak Starflex. That was well before my Instamatic days, when you could probably still get a Diana thrown in with the odd gallon of petrol...

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