Three weeks ago I was watching a YouTube video that mentioned Vivian Maier’s work; I had seen her work years ago but had forgotten until now. She was a nanny in NYC in the 50s and 60s, and she took amazing photographs with a 120 film twin-lens reflex camera.
I suddenly thought “Wow, I wish I could take B&W photos on film with a TLR like that!” and after a half hour I realized there was no reason why I can’t do it. I have shot film in my younger days, my mom was a photographer with a fully tricked-out darkroom in our basement, and I have been shooting serious digital portraiture for many years.
So I boldly ordered a Mamiya C220 twin lens reflex from Roberts Camera and a five pack of Kodak Tri-X. I sent the photos off to a lab in California to be developed and waited, gnawing my fingernails, until I could see my 3 depressing pitiful rolls of totally out of focus and poorly exposed photographs…
…but they turned out great!
Here is the very first photo I shot on 120 film in my life:
And if you don’t mind flipping through 35 photos (missed one somehow), here’s the rest of the gallery:
There appears to be a scratch on the negatives of the first roll of 12, possibly caused by dirt inside the mechanism or maybe at the lab. I will be inspecting very carefully.
Maybe it’s a woosh to me–yes there is a fire hydrant in the mix–but I was referring to the bronze sculpture of random civilian office workers with shackled hands and blindfolds, while two bronze guys are having some discussion about their fate off to the side.
I like your first effort! My photography class in high school in 1964 only shot B&W (Plus X or Tri X). It’s really the best medium for learning composition and contrast. I had to use my mother’s old and balky Argus C3, as I couldn’t afford a camera of my own. Learning how to manipulate photos in the darkroom was a lot of fun, also. The teacher had a 4x5 Speed Graflex press camera, but wouldn’t let any of us use it.
Thanks! And yes, this is going to be an exciting journey. Not only am I dealing with a fully manual camera with odd quirks (it’s a twin lens reflex) that is over fifty years old, but the 6x6 square format is a completely different beast for composition.
These first rolls were all about seeing if the camera worked, in case it had light leaks or something.
I have a notebook where I dutifully recorded the exposure settings, weather, and any unusual factors for each shot.
For the orchid I had noted that it was likely 1.5x underexposed since the lens bellows were extended to the point where the little chart on the side of the camera said “1.5x”. In the end I’m really happy with the exposure since it shows detail in the petals while rendering the background quite dark.
One simple example of the nuances of a TLR is how the flower is slightly high because I hadn’t accounted for the offset between the viewing lens (top) and imaging lens (bottom) for such a close shot. I’m quite satisfied with how it came out though.
This is definitely a long and fiddly process, winding the film, cocking the shutter, setting the exposure settings, using a special built-in magnifier to check focus on the ground glass, composing, and then finally depressing the shutter release. Then writing down the details in my notebook.
It is so much different from the “snap…snap…snap” approach we are so accustomed to in our digital photography world!
I always wanted to do large format shooting with something like the Graflex, but you really need your own darkroom for that sort of thing and I never had the space (or the time). With an 8/10 format, you basically get a contact print, which will let you get amazing detail and sharpness. You also need a lot of patience.
If you get a chance, look at the work of Bradford Washburn. He shot with a Fairchild K-6 large format using 8" roll film (!). A lot of his aerial photography was done with him hanging from a harness out the door of a prop plane. He once passed out from oxygen deprivation doing that. We met him when he was quite old and he signed a copy of his book of Alaska mountain and glacier photography for us.
I have a very compact darkroom setup that I use for both my medium format and the 4x5 negs from my Crown Graphic. Everything but for a few bottles of chemistry I keep in the back of the fridge fits in a plastic tote. Of course, that’s in part because I don’t print with an enlarger, I just scan the film. I’ve periodically looked at picking up an enlarger, but even though they pop up for free now and again, I don’t want the bulky equipment taking up space, I don’t want to have to light-proof my room, and I don’t have a lot of faith in the long term availability of paper.
I can do everything for 4x5 out in the light in my setup, using a changing bag and a super nifty developing tank. Some purist may nitpick this setup as an advantage to sheet film is that you can develop by inspection if you’re tray processing, but I’m not that hardcore of a zone system guy.
When I develop color film, I have what is a relabeled sous vide cooker that keeps the water bath at exactly my right temperature.
Large format shooting? Heck, I had my hands full with 6x6. I can’t imagine all of the fussy work needed to shoot large format.
Though I would dearly love to get into doing prints with an enlarger (and burning/dodging and that stuff), a proper place for that is just not in the cards. I’d have to give up my machine shop space!
That’s my plan. Chemicals are on the way, along with other stuff, so I can develop 35mm and 120mm, then scan them.
One thing I do have is a dark room (not a darkroom): my new office in the basement is light tight, so if I shut everything off and make sure there are no stray blue LEDs lit, I can load the film there without the need of a changing bag.
TBH, I find the Crown Graphic easier to shoot with than my Mamiya RB67. At least when doing basic shooting hand held. Of course with large format, there’s the possibility of using all the lens board movements to get into serious, serious control of depth of field, but I’m not doing that. But I could easily see how the really committed shooters spend tens of minutes composing and focusing.
But if you imagine yourself as a modern day Weegee, you can use the old press photographer tricks like pre-focusing, shooting at f/11 and estimating shutter speed and you can have a good time without a lot of fuss.
What I don’t do now (lost in a move) is shoot with the old flash bulbs. That was great because those things we so powerful that as long as you had a guess how far your subject was gonna be, you really could not go wrong. Just an intense amount of light and a very satisfying pop. And very, very unhappy subjects not used to semi-permanent blindness.
That statue certainly has a haunting appearance, and over the years I have run around the statue hundreds of times on runs through that park. It always troubled me–it is normal to see statues of soldiers in uniform in a Veteran’s park, but this one had civilian office workers bound and blindfolded while some deal is being struck off to the side, definitely spooky.
One day I looked down at the brass plaque embedded in the ground in front of the sculpture: it is called “Frustration”
A quick Google search told me that the statue represents the Iranian Hostage Crisis, a particularly dark period in U.S. history in 1979.
Presumably the statue was inspired by images such as this one from the real hostages:
I was in the seventh grade at the time, and though I was innocent of any understanding of the nuances of the event, I remember the palpable sense of frustration in our nation as we watched our impotent leaders and military struggle with how to bring them home–it wouldn’t be until 444 days later when they would finally come home in an event clearly timed to match the inauguration of President Reagan.
Wikidedia:
“Political analysts cited the standoff as a major factor in the continuing downfall of Carter’s presidency and his landslide loss in the 1980 presidential election. The hostages were formally released into United States custody the day after the signing of the Algiers Accords, just minutes after American President Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.”
The title of the sculpture is quite apt, and the figures definitely evoke emotions.
