About Colorful Analogue Cameras

It started with a tiny camera.

Colorful Analogue Cameras didn't begin with a business plan.

It started at a vintage photography flea market, where I spotted a tiny Belomo Agat 18K.It was cute. It was small. It worked.And it was painted... well... horribly.Sorry to the previous owner, if you're reading this.

I wanted it anyway.

I bought the camera without really knowing what I was going to do with it. At some point, I decided to paint it. I enjoyed the process far more than I expected — and, more importantly, I loved what happened when something old and ordinary became something completely different.

Custom painted Belomo Agat 18 K

So I painted another one.Then another.

And eventually, I realised I wasn't just painting cameras anymore. I had found something that brought together several things I had always loved: photography, art, nature, old objects and making things with my own hands.

And that's how Colorful Analogue Cameras began.

Why cameras?

I've always enjoyed photography, but that little Agat 18K was what really pulled me into the world of analogue cameras.

There is something special about old cameras. They have already lived a life before they reach you. They have been carried around, used, dropped, stored away, forgotten and eventually found again.I like giving them another chapter.

A vintage camera doesn't have to stay exactly as it was made decades ago. If the paint is chipped, the body is worn, or the camera has been sitting forgotten somewhere, why not give it a new life — and make it beautiful while you're at it?

Sometimes it's a well-known classic.Sometimes it's a camera most people have never heard of.And sometimes all it needs is a little colour to make someone stop and think:

“Actually... I want to try this.”

Why customize them?

Because I don't think everything has to look the same.

Vintage cameras can be beautiful as they are, but I love taking something that already has history and giving it a completely new personality.I don't want to simply restore cameras to look factory-new.

I want to make them feel personal.

Nature, patterns, colours, strange little ideas and completely different styles can all find their way onto a camera. Sometimes the result is delicate. Sometimes it's bold. Sometimes I have no idea where an idea will take me until I start working on it.

That's part of the fun.

Handmade, because I like getting my hands dirty.

Everything I make is handmade.I paint, cut, design, experiment, mess things up, fix them, start again and occasionally wonder why I decided to do something the hard way.But I like it that way.

I've always loved handmade things because no two pieces are ever truly identical. You can try to make two objects exactly the same, but there will always be tiny differences — a line, a brushstroke, a texture, a little imperfection.And that's exactly what makes them special.

When something is handmade, you can see the time, attention, patience and sometimes even the stubbornness that went into making it.It isn't a perfect copy of something made a thousand times.

It is one particular thing, made by one particular person, at one particular moment.

I don't want to create a grey mass of identical objects.

I want to make things that feel alive.

And the accessories?

Well... if we're going to do this, we might as well go all in. A camera deserves a strap. A camera deserves somewhere to keep its film.

And if I'm already making things by hand, why stop at the camera?

The accessories grew naturally from the same idea — making useful things that feel like they belong together.

A little combo wombo, if you will.

Basically: the camera shouldn't have all the fun.

What does Colorful Analogue Cameras mean to me?

It's more than just colourful cameras. It's a little corner of my life where a lot of things I love meet. I love nature. I love photography. I love drawing and painting. I love old things with history. I love making things with my hands.

And I love the idea that something forgotten can become interesting again.

A lot of my artwork is inspired by nature, and that naturally finds its way into my cameras and other pieces. Flowers, plants, organic shapes, patterns and colours are things I keep coming back to.

Colorful Analogue Cameras is where all of that comes together. One day, I'd love to live somewhere quiet, perhaps in a little cabin surrounded by nature, making things simply because I want to make them — and sharing those things with people who appreciate art, photography and objects with a bit of personality.

This is a small step in that direction.

So, who is behind all of this?

Hi. I'm Rita.

I'm a Lithuanian artist, maker and the person behind Colorful Analogue Cameras.

I grew up in Lithuania and have always been drawn to art and nature. I tried quite a few things along the way — sports, dancing, theatre and plenty of other things that seemed interesting at the time.

But somehow, drawing and painting were always there in the background. I never went to art school. Shocking, I know. After school, I somehow ended up studying art education. I hated it. I dropped out. Then I studied design instead and actually finished that one. For a while, I thought I would become a designer. Apparently, I had other plans.

Drawing and painting kept pulling me back. Whenever I stopped making things, eventually I would find myself doing it again. And then came that tiny, badly painted Agat 18K at the flea market. Photography met painting. And I finally found a place where the two could live together. So that's what I'm doing now. Making colourful things. Getting my hands dirty. Experimenting. Learning as I go. Finding forgotten cameras and giving them another chance to be noticed.

And hopefully, making something that makes another person want to pick up a camera and create something of their own.

Old souls. New colors. Endless stories.