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.
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.
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.”
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!
Tags: 120, beach, film, medium format, photo walk, portsmouth, sea