Learn Hardcore Russian: На полке лежит фотоаппарат, которым папа фотографировал наш отпуск. - On the shelf lies the camera with which Dad photographed our vacation.

на полке = on the shelf (Prepositional case, полка → полке)
Used for location: where something is.
на полку = onto the shelf (Accusative case, полка → полку)
Used for direction/motion: where something is going/being put.

In the sentence:

На полке лежит фотоаппарат…

we’re describing where the camera is, not where we are putting it, so Russian must use the Prepositional: на полке. If we said “He put the camera on the shelf”, that would be:

Он поставил фотоаппарат на полку.

Why do we use лежит here? Could we use стоит instead, and what’s the difference?

Russian likes to use specific position verbs instead of a neutral “is”:

лежать (лежит) – to lie, be lying (usually horizontally or resting on a surface)
стоять (стоит) – to stand, be standing (usually vertically, on a base)
висеть (висит) – to hang

So:

На полке лежит фотоаппарат…
Literally: On the shelf lies a camera…

A фотоаппарат can be imagined either:

Lying on its side ⇒ лежит
Standing upright (on its base) ⇒ стоит

In practice, both лежит and стоит are possible, depending on how the speaker pictures it. There is no simple neutral “is” for this kind of sentence; instead Russians choose one of these verbs of position.

Why is there a comma before которым?

The comma marks the beginning of a relative clause, similar to “which” in English.

Main clause: На полке лежит фотоаппарат – “There is a camera on the shelf.”
Relative clause: которым папа фотографировал наш отпуск – “with which Dad photographed our vacation.”

Russian normally separates such clauses with commas:

фотоаппарат, которым папа фотографировал наш отпуск

So the comma is obligatory here, just like in English:
“the camera, with which Dad photographed our vacation.”

Why is it которым and not который or которое?

Которым is a form of the relative pronoun который (“which/that”). It must agree with the noun it refers to in gender and number, and take the case required by its role in the clause.

It refers to фотоаппарат:
- фотоаппарат is masculine, singular.
In the clause которым папа фотографировал наш отпуск, the pronoun answers the question:
- чем? – with what?
  The verb фотографировать here governs Instrumental for the instrument:
  фотографировать чем? фотоаппаратом – “to photograph with a camera.”

Masculine singular Instrumental of который is которым:

Nominative: который (who/which)
Accusative (inanimate): который
Genitive: которого
Dative: которому
Instrumental: которым
Prepositional: о котором

So которым is correct because it is:

masculine singular (matching фотоаппарат)
in the Instrumental case (answering чем? “with what?”).

Could I say который папа фотографировал наш отпуск instead of которым?

No, который here would be ungrammatical because it would be in the wrong case.

In папа фотографировал наш отпуск, the verb фотографировать takes:

кого? что? (Accusative) for the thing photographed: наш отпуск
чем? (Instrumental) for the instrument: фотоаппаратом

The relative pronoun stands for the instrument, so it must be in the Instrumental: которым, not который (Nominative/Accusative).

If you wanted a construction with на instead, you might hear colloquially:

Папа фотографировал наш отпуск на фотоаппарат.
→ Then the corresponding pronoun would be на который (“onto which / on which”), but that’s a different structure. In the original sentence, the verb is using чем?
- Instrumental, so we need которым.

What case is папа in, and why doesn’t it have мой or наш before it?

Папа here is:

in the Nominative case – it is the subject of the verb фотографировал.
grammatically masculine (though the ending -а looks like a feminine noun, it behaves like masculine: он, папа, каков? добрый).

Russian commonly omits possessive pronouns with close family members when it’s clear from context. So:

папа often means “my/our dad” in context.
You can say мой папа, наш папа, but plain папа is very natural and usually understood as one’s own father.

What case is наш отпуск in, and why isn’t it нашего отпуска?

The phrase наш отпуск is in the Accusative case.

The verb фотографировать takes a direct object in the Accusative:

фотографировать кого? что? – “to photograph whom/what?”
фотографировать наш отпуск – “to photograph our vacation”

For inanimate masculine nouns like отпуск, the Accusative looks the same as the Nominative:

Nominative: отпуск
Accusative: отпуск (no change)

Similarly for the pronoun наш:

Nominative masculine singular: наш
Accusative masculine singular (inanimate): наш (no change)

Нашего отпуска would be Genitive and would answer чего?; that doesn’t fit the verb’s pattern here.

Why is it фотографировал, not a perfective form like сфотографировал?

Фотографировал is the imperfective past tense of фотографировать:

фотографировать (imperfective) – to be photographing, to photograph in general, to take photos (as a process/habit).
сфотографировать (perfective) – to photograph once, to have photographed (finished action).

In the relative clause:

которым папа фотографировал наш отпуск

we’re describing which camera it was, and the photographing is background information. The focus is on identifying the camera, not on the completion of the action. The imperfective naturally presents it as an activity Dad did using that camera.

We could say:

которым папа сфотографировал наш отпуск

This would emphasize one completed act of photographing the vacation. It’s not wrong, but stylistically фотографировал feels more neutral and process-like.

How does фотографировать work with instruments? Is it always чем?, or can it be на что? too?

Both patterns exist, with slightly different feels:

чем? (Instrumental) – more traditional, bookish/neutral:
- фотографировать чем? фотоаппаратом
- фотографировать чем? камерой
  → “photograph with a camera”
на что? (using на
- Accusative) – very common in everyday speech:
- фотографировать на что? на телефон, на фотоаппарат, на камеру → literally “to photograph onto (a phone/camera)”, idiomatically “to take photos on a phone/camera”.

In the sentence:

которым папа фотографировал наш отпуск

the verb is clearly using the чем? pattern, so the pronoun is Instrumental (которым). If we were using the на что? pattern, a more literal relative version would be:

фотоаппарат, на который папа фотографировал наш отпуск

That’s grammatical too, but it sounds more colloquial and a bit more tied to the idea of “shooting on that device.”

What exactly is фотоаппарат? Is it just “camera”? Are there other common words?

Фотоаппарат literally means “photo apparatus” and corresponds to “(still) camera”. It’s:

masculine noun
singular Nominative: фотоаппарат
Instrumental: фотоаппаратом
Plural Nominative: фотоаппараты

Other common words:

камера – often video camera, phone camera, general “camera” in modern speech.
фотик – very colloquial, like “cam”/“camera” in casual speech.
зеркалка – colloquial for a DSLR (from “зеркальный фотоаппарат”).

In this neutral sentence, фотоаппарат is an appropriate, standard word for a normal camera used to take photos.

Could the word order be Фотоаппарат лежит на полке, которым папа фотографировал наш отпуск? What’s the difference in word order?

The natural word orders are:

На полке лежит фотоаппарат, которым папа фотографировал наш отпуск.
Фотоаппарат, которым папа фотографировал наш отпуск, лежит на полке.

Both are correct but emphasize different things:

На полке лежит фотоаппарат…
- Starts with the location.
- Similar to “On the shelf there is a camera which Dad used…”
- Focus: “What’s on the shelf? There’s a certain camera.”
Фотоаппарат, которым папа фотографировал наш отпуск, лежит на полке.
- Starts with the camera itself, then adds a detail, then ends with location.
- Similar to “The camera that Dad used to photograph our vacation is on the shelf.”
- Focus: “That particular camera? It’s on the shelf.”

Your variant:

Фотоаппарат лежит на полке, которым папа фотографировал наш отпуск

is incorrect, because которым must immediately follow its antecedent фотоаппарат (or the whole noun phrase containing it). As written, it seems to refer to полке (grammatically impossible here), so Russian speakers would find it ungrammatical or very awkward. The relative clause should stay right after фотоаппарат.

How would you translate the whole sentence very literally vs. naturally?

Very literal:
“On the shelf lies a camera, with which Dad was photographing our vacation.”
Natural English:
“On the shelf is the camera Dad used to photograph our vacation.”
or
“There’s the camera on the shelf that Dad used to photograph our vacation.”

The Russian structure with лежит and которым maps to English using “is” / “lies” and “which/that… used to photograph… with.”