One of the most important lessons I learnt in photography was taught to me by my father’s sixty year old Rolleiflex camera. Go slow. With only 12 exposures per roll of medium format film, my best guess was it cost me $3 every time I clicked the shutter so every photograph became an exercise in going slow to make sure I got it right. Completely manual, I used a handheld light meter or test shots from my DSLR to set the exposure. Mounted on a tripod and the scene carefully framed, trying different angles and compositions. Manual focus while looking down on the ground glass screen, sometimes even using a magnifier to better see what I was doing. Only after this would I attach the cable shutter release and turn the crank on the side to advance the film, the tiny sound of the leaf shutter being almost anti-climactic compared to the slapping of an SLR’s mirror.
By slowing down the image creation process I had more time to see what I was capturing and different ways of doing so. Seeing the light, moving a leaf on a rock that I’d only have to deal with in post, finding better compositions by changing position by as little as a few inches. Try going slow next time you have your camera out, stop and feel the surroundings and look for different ways of capturing the image before you click that shutter.
I’ve not used this camera since the demise of my favourite photo lab a few years ago but having recently joined a community photo group with our own darkroom, I think medium format film is back on the menu.
