This Pentax Spotmatic has a Heartwarming Story Behind It

Vintage cameras are certainly witnesses to generations of touching and life-changing events, such as the beautiful story behind this Pentax Spotmatic.

When you’re buying and shooting with vintage cameras, you’re also taking with you decades worth of fascinating history. If you’re really lucky, you might come across cameras used by famous photographers, limited edition models, and even those used for NASA spaceflights. You’ll be even luckier if you have the money to afford them. Or, you may simply find one with a really heartwarming personal history, like this Pentax Spotmatic that Brisbane-based Daimon Wright found.

In his story, Wright said he bought this Pentax Spotmatic a couple of weeks ago from a “pretty young guy” who was selling a bunch of cameras for a very low price. As you’d probably expect, he jumped at. The seller told him that he used the camera while traveling and also to propose to his now-wife.

“I can only imagine he would’ve written this in long before then asked her to have a go at taking a picture of him. She probably would have looked through the viewfinder to frame the shot then seen “marry me” with him standing (or kneeling) in the frame. Anyways, I bought it a couple weeks ago and didn’t have the heart to erase the writing.”

Fast-forward to more recent times, the seller messaged Wright again, asking to buy the camera back, if he could unjam the mirror and shutter. ” He offered to buy it back for way too much initially but eventually agreed on a price. These old Pentax’s are easy to fix mechanically in my opinion and I know my way around the insides quite well now.”

So, Wright set to work to clean and fix the camera. Aside from getting the shutter running smoothly, he also put on new seals and stuck down the leatherette, which was peeling on the front. “He did ask me to erase the writing, but to my knowledge, he’s going to write it back in much neater. All in all, a very feel-good experience that I wanted to share.”

Of course, because we’ll all be curious about how the actual proposal looked like from the camera’s viewfinder, Wright made sure to include a snap of that.

It seems that the anonymous young man may have found inspiration in a similar proposal done by Jerrit Pruyn with a few years back. The NYC wedding and portrait photographer documented it in a blog post, which was picked up by websites like Huffington Post and Gizmodo.

A really clever way to pop the question, don’t you think? It’s also great that the couples can keep the camera as a memento of that special day.

Photos used with permission from Daimon Wright

Related