I'm not a huge fan of self-portraits, but while browsing some old photographs, I've came across this one. It was taken around February 2007, when I was experimenting a bit with a Zenit 11. It's quite the classic shot, I've seen dozens of these on Flickr, yet they're always interesting - it's the same scene, but a different person or camera.

Zenit 11 was the first camera that I ever used - or better said, "abused". I was about six years old, when my dad bought one of these and let me play with it a bit. Back in those days, it really seemed like a hi-tech equipment - it was very heavy, yet precise and gentile. It had no fancy automatic mode, but it did have a light meter which was very useful.

In the photo, it's the same model, but a different camera. Unfortunately our first Zenit 11 found a new owner a couple of years ago, yet I did manage to find this one on an auction site. While it seems to be in perfect condition on the outside, the inside is a bit of a mess; the shutter is faulty, not closing properly (it's slower on a frame segment) and sometimes it's not closing at all.

On the good side, I love how the colours turned out (it might also be due to the laboratory processing). It's funny, but most of the time I'm trying to get the same tones while processing the digital.