Received an Ilford Sportsman as a birthday present, which was quickly traded (1967 from memory) for a Zenit 3M (with Industar f3.5 50mm lens). The Zenit's biggest competitor in the UK at the time was the East German made 'Praktica. Both were sold at the heady price of fifteen pounds! I think my father was anxious for me to own my own camera because I kept borrowing his Rolleiflex, which seemed to make him very anxious indeed! I held on to the Zenit until the early eighties. The Zenit was a great camera and a great way to learn all about taking photographs. Next up, a Canon AV1, which I kept, until replacing it with a Canon IXUS digital. Now running (since 2005) an Olympus E300 and a Panasonic GM5 & GX1.

I firmly believe you should photograph everything, simply because what seems so ordinary and mundane today are the photographs you will be wishing you had taken twenty, thirty and forty years from now!