I've been using a medium format camera. and .... i like it.
Go ahead. throw stones and vegetables. Loot my house.
I never thought I would cheat on my field camera. Things were fine at home. But I wanted do a project in color, and times were tough. I looked up the prices of sheet film and processing, and realized it would be close to $5 every time I clicked the shutter. I thought of creative ways to afford it, but my parole officer kept wagging his finger at me.
And then the phone rang. It was my friend Anne, asking, "hey, do you have any use for a Hasselblad? i have one and i don't know how to use it. you can borrow it, and if you figure it out, just promise to show me." I looked up the price of c41 film: $2.39 a roll. Processing: $5. I picked up the camera the next day, and stayed up trying to figure out how to use it from Anne's notes, made while a friend from the Czech Republic explained things to her. Notes like, "film goes on spindle that does not have the hat" and "you must see black or camera will break." In spite of these, I figured it out sometime before dawn.
A couple of rolls into it I was hooked. It's really the perfect way to try soemthing new (a new project, color, an experiment) because it's so fast and the film is so cheap. There's no deterrent from experimenting. I make 12 exposures in the time it would normally take me to make just a couple. Total freedom to play. Now if I decide to start using the the big camera for color, I'll be able to hit the ground running.
One of the nicest things was working with a tool where everything is different--color (new to me), square format, waist level finder, weird 40 year-old swedish design. It forces me out of any old habits, so everything is fresh. Doing the same old thing isn't an option anymore. At the very least, it's been a fun and interesting exercise. And I love the speed. I have a body of work taking sheep just a few rolls into it. My last body of work took 10 years.
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