So recently I noticed their was something big missing in not only my photography but also in my creative drive, I was happy with the shots I was producing but they just didn’t get me as excited as they used too. I needed a big change…

I also started to notice a theme as I was browsing flickr and other photographers websites, almost every shot that really inspired and amazed me was shot on film. So I decided to get back into shooting film, after all it was how I learnt to take photos with an old Pentax SLR. After a few weeks of browsing local shops and internet sites I managed to grab myself a bargain Bronica etrs medium format camera. Having only ever shot on simple 35mm film slr’s this was quite daunting but I thought I should throw myself in the deep end as I was fairly used to 35mm film and really wanted to try this bigger format.

The Bronica etrs in action on Portsmouth beach.

Almost as soon as the camera had arrived and I had familiarised myself with the controls I loaded a roll of Fuji film pro 400h into the film back and headed to Portsmouth with a friend to do a photo walk and test the new camera.

First impressions were great, I really love the way that shooting this style of waist level viewfinder makes you slow down and use different angles, also I didn’t want to burn through the 15 shot roll of film too quickly, so I took my time with each frame and tried to get them right. And I wasn’t disappointed when I received my prints and negatives today from fuji processing. The shots have come out super sharp, more so than a lot from my nikon d300…. So its safe to say I’m looking forward to shooting a lot more medium format very soon.
Here are a few of the shots from the first roll that i really liked.

“Sail away with me honey”

“Which bridge to cross and which to burn..”

“The road never ends…Only our vision does.”

I saw this motorbike pull up by the location we were shooting and I new that I had to get a couple of frames of this beautiful machine, I walked over and asked the rider (Nathan) who was more than happy for me to take a couple of shots and seemed very proud of his bike. He was in a hurry to get home as it was freezing so as he jumped on his bike i grabbed one last shot of him pulling away.

“Animals travel on all fours. Mankind on two. Motorcycling is not a means of transport but an ideology.”

“Waiting on a sunny day.”

I’m also pretty happy with the fact that none of these images needed any post processing, probably the first time I will have posted something without it going through photoshop first. This could be the start of something good!