I recently bought a Mamiya 645 1000s medium format film camera on ebay. I’ve wanted to try medium format photography for a very long time, but with the ready availabilty of my full-frame digital camera, it was easy to chalk this up as an idea for another day. With the dslr camera away for repair for over a month, there has been time to study and learn and embrace new-to-me tools and approaches to photography.

These are from my first roll (Kodak Portra 400) and I’m pretty happy with the results. I had some focus issues and I suspect this mainly had to do with my not understanding how to use the focus distance scale properly. The prism viewfinder is pretty straightforward and I think I focused correctly. Exposures looked good, too. But overall, the photos were not as crisp or sharp as I’d expected. I’m working on a second roll now and we’ll see if I can improve. In the meantime, I’m deeply happy every day when I wake up and remember that I am a photographer.

Well . . . parts for my digital camera are on back order (supply chain issues). I’ll likely not see my Canon dslr until early August. Hopefully.

But it’s not the tool that matters. As is so often true, the constraints only serve to make us more resourceful, and creative expression often flourishes under difficult circumstances. I am not frustrated or disappointed over the long repair time frame because I do not expect things to be perfect. Instead, I’ve turned my attention to film photography. I love everything about this process. It’s slow and methodical work. It feels like noticing something deep into your bones.

I took this picture of the fireworks stand on the morning of July 5th, the day after Independence Day. When I drove past in the afternoon, the decorations and the signs were gone. And the next day, the white trailer was gone, too. Summer is zipping by way too fast.