Watches and Cameras? An odd but wonderful pairing. One sentence, and you can skip this whole article of me waxing eloquent about my love for cameras and watches: Capturing and Telling the Time, time is how Cameras and Watches relate. Cameras are part of how we experience things, remember things, document moments, and capture time. On the other hand, Watches are objects of time themselves, objects of telling the time.
Why do we think the two go hand in hand? We love the beauty of a finely crafted camera, the pleasure of operating a mechanical Leica M, or the uniqueness of a particular lens. A Camera is a tool, a tool with a specific purpose. We pair cameras and lenses together to accomplish specific tasks such as taking a portrait, documenting an event, or capturing a landscape. Watches, like cameras, serve a particular purpose all while being beautifully made tools with which we tell the time.
Sure, you can tell the time on your phone, but you can also take a photo with your phone, and I doubt you’re reading this if you believe that using your phone is the best way to take a picture all the time. I’m not saying the phone is not a great tool for photography, just like I’m not saying the phone isn’t an accurate way to tell time. But, just like we prefer the elegance of using a camera, a lens, a particular tripod, or camera bag, we enjoy the elegance of using a tangible yet beautiful tool to tell the time.
We are highly passionate about these two tools at Camera West and have been for some time. For over 20 years, we’ve been buying, selling, and trading watches for camera gear, and it is out of this we opened CW Watch Shop, which at first glance might make one think, “Oh, ‘CW,’ that stands for ‘Cameras West,'” but does it? Maybe it stands for Cameras & Watches…
