Olympus fe 35 "Свобода"

About four years ago was my 15th birthday. I remember I wanted to have an old camera, since I have been taking photographs since I was seven. Despite this, I don't even see it as a hobby. It's was just a human activity.
Before that I owned a photo camera from Sony and I called it “Absolute”. I have not preserved any material related to his existence (actually absolute is still alive, but he is located at my native place. I ran away from my country, so I couldn't take him with me). His battery was simply swollen but my father wanted to fix it at the risk that half of the kitchen might explode. Nothing happened and it did not in any way affect the state of my Absolute (Update 07.01.24: my mother brought him back, but now my father owns it. He will never use it, like his piano...).
I found one, after some time. It was olympus fe 35 which name was Свобода (The freedom).

And since that day he became my reliable companion, because wherever I went, he was always with me.
When I was taking a photo, first of all I was creating a memory. I'm not trying to capture beauty or anything special. In a figurative sense, you can say that I figuratively create a copy of what I see and transfer it inside the memory of the camera, which only holds 7 photos.

Camera type: compact;
Lens name: Olympus;
Image stabilizer (still photography): digital;
Optical Zoom: 3X;
Diaphragm: F3.1 - F5.9;
Focal length (35mm equivalent): 36 - 108 mm;
Minimum shooting distance: 0.05;
Number of megapixels of the matrix: 10.7 MP;
Number of effective megapixels of the matrix: 10 MP;
Size: 1/2.33";
Maximum resolution: 3648 x 2736;
Matrix type: CCD;
Crop factor: 5.7;
Focusing: in the face;
Exposition: auto ISO, multi-zone;
Sensitivity: 100 - 1600 ISO;
Excerpt: 4 - 1/2000 s;
White balance: auto, presets;
Shooting modes: video recording, macro photography;
Timer operating time: 12 s;
Viewfinder: no (output to screen);
Flash options: Built-in flash, red-eye reduction;
Screen size: 2.5";
Number of LCD dots: 230000;
Screen: work in viewfinder mode, fixed;
Connection interfaces: USB, video;
USB type: 2.0;
Supported memory cards: microSD, microSDHC, xD-Picture;
Image format support: AVI, MJPEG, 16:9 format, 4:3 format;
Maximum video recording resolution: 640x480;
Maximum video frame rate: 30 fps;
Video recording time: video file size up to 2 GB;
Maximum frame rate: when shooting HD video;
Battery type: AA-compatible;
Number of batteries: 2;
Size: 94x62x27 mm;
Weight: 110 g, without batteries;
Additional options: tripod mount, timer;
Digital Zoom: 4X;
Equipment: two AA batteries, USB cable, video cable, microSD adapter, wrist strap, manual, software CD;
Announcement date: 2009-01-01.

The first photograph taken on Свобода was lost. I guess the first thing captured was my best friend's opened wound on his leg from art school when I was a schoolgirl. These photos followed that one. The summer of 2021:

My best friend from art school...

Village "Krivoy Kushugum" (this place was dangerous even before war).

A tunnel located near the Kushugum close to the railway tracks.

My memories are blurry regarding the photographs taken on the abandoned building of another park Pobeda.


Everything in this charming ruin is dear to me. When I was a little child, this place was an entertainment center. Recordings on my father's old video camera are direct evidence of the once widespread activity of this now dead place. But even so, I still visited it during the period when I had my first relationship. I was in the seventh grade at the gymnasium. She and I held hands while walking here, and every time we always went for a picnic in the far part of Pobeda park...

The most second popular place in this city was, I suppose, Raduga park.


So yes, that hill was the only one thing I actually managed to capture. Me and the best friend were smoking here and watching how ducks are getting their bunch of bread from old ladies.

And the most popular could be the island of Khortitsya. I got drunk and barely made it home. Those two pictures remain the same meadow, but from two opposite angles.
Day:

Evening:


I feel another glitch in my memories. May be, those were the real first pictures of the olympus... The leader of the musical group where I was the bassist took me on the roof. If I'm correct, he asked me then, if I want to run away with him to Berdyansk. I agreed, but to the winter, our personal problems calmed down. It is assumed that this was at the end of June.


This blurry view of the coming storm and factories could be seen from a 15-story building, onto the roof of which we used to often burst into.

This is him, sitting on the roof and fingering his shoes.

After the owner of the house discovered 10 bottles of mineral water in litre, my sweater stretched over a thick exhaust pipe, packs of toothpaste-flavored cigarettes and drawings of Viktor Tsoi and Jim Morrison clinking beer in heaven (located on unconnected plates), she then suspected something. The passage to the roof was closed. Forever...
But we also were doing a lot of other stuff.

One day he came to the edge of the city from the center just to walk with me. There’s not much interesting on the Baburka, but we found this wheat field where I suggested to go for fun. In the wheat I found used squirrel brushes smeared in dried gouache.

I don't know why I captured him in that pose again.

Ow. And this is the most painful thing.

I have very poor eyesight. And minus three doesn’t feel at all as rosy as they show you on phone recordings, where they first lean the lens against the camera. I don't recognize my parents without glasses or lenses. All people become blurs, blurry like my memories. And that day I was walking along the railway with him, and he gasped, “Oh God, what is this?”. I lowered my head, and a frolicking yellow spot hid in the grass under my feet. The first thing that came to my mind was to take the abandoned quail home. At home he joked that I should turn on a football for him. I warmed him in my palm, I fed him and did not let him go anywhere so that he would not freeze or he would not be eaten by my cats. When I gave him the opportunity to walk on my bed, he circled and pecked my lips, climbing onto my chest.

He died three days later. I don't have the slightest idea why. All that remains of him is this photograph and the association with the song The Caretaker - Long Term (Remote).

Oh no... It's the end of the summer now. For olympus, that meeting was the last one.


Along with the end of summer, a part of me died. And later all of me. Then the moment comes when Свобода dies too. Only unlike me, it is enough for him to replace the batteries to resume his life. Which is what I did... after two years of his sleep.

So... oh, now I live in the Hrastnik community. What happened? I was used to have only one friend there. There is no place for me here, and all I was doomed to experience in this country was disappointment. I never thought about isolating myself earlier. But it turned out to be quite pleasant and not lonely to live without friends at all. For some reason, I still don't feel alone despite the fact that I have only my mother left who I talk to every day or have breakfast together.







But after such a long time, a lot of the pain goes away. At least it becomes dull to such an extent that you basically lose all sense of well-being. This happened to me with the sea.
Izola was... okay, for the second year of living in this terrible place.



When I was 14, I went alone to Berdyansk to visit my aunt. I traveled four hours in a minibus to get to the edge of the earth in the region of my city. And this region ended with the Sea of Azov. Probably, it was then that I realized that I wanted to be a sailor. I looked at the banks of the Berdyansk harbor swollen with hills, strewn with cruisers and fishing boats. My family, naturally, ridiculed my honesty and told me that my eccentric wish was impossible only because I was a woman. So I stayed... a woman.
Well, now all I can do is enjoy the ships from afar. Cruise ferries and barges, among which small sailboats flaunt.




And when the summer ends... a part of me dies again.







Happy deathday to me. A year ago I celebrated my first anniversary in the forest, with the same set of toys.



On January 19, the first snow began to fall, and this is a fairly rare occurrence in the place where I live. In my hometown there is always a lot of snow, but I didn’t go up. For now...
For the first time I feel like the snow wants to hug me.

One day I was cleaning my father's office because he doesn't have enough time to do it because of his work. I wanted to cheer him up, so I made a dog out of light bulbs and placed something similar around it, like a stage in a theater.