by L. Jaramillo
May 12, 2024
In the day of instant ideas, transferred data, phone app editors, and an eventual post on instagram, we have sacrificed the mystery part of our creative soul. The whole process of photography has been reduced into several seconds on a mobile phone. Since we have almost unlimited chances to get it right with every actuation of the digital sensor, and even more chances to make it absolutely perfect with retouching tools, I wanted to pose a foil to digital image ecosystem by pulling out all the autopilot systems, and unclicking the seatbelt, for the sake of identifying and revealing some truth, and exist without a safety net.
The natural inclination is to shoot film. And by today’s standards you wouldn’t be wrong. But even 35mm film has multiple chances to get it right. There is comfort there, and looking through a viewfinder in an SLR can also enhance your chances of nailing your shots. So considering a challenge or a gimmick, shooting on a fully manual, old school medium format camera might be the answer. Enter: Rolleiflex 2.8e.
Why would I lug around a 70 year old camera, that only takes 12 frames in a square format, and not even be able to see through the lens I’m taking the image from? Because I and perhaps some of you out there, subscribe to the idea that we are not perfect, and I’m not refined and neither is the Rolleiflex. Let me start off by saying, it’s hard taking pictures with this thing. Having to view through the WLF is difficult. Everything is reversed and so are your instincts and motor skills for composition. It’s absolutely the slowest way to capture a photo. But that’s the key.
In that process I have to calm my mind down. I have to advance the film slowly and be thoughtful of how I want to spend this frame’s value: 4 dollars per shot. Feeding this camera necessitates being particular on what you want to compose and how you want to bring the camera out.
Shooting on it, would create an attraction in itself. The austere quality of the image of the twin lenses, the leather straps, the metallic buttons that exist somewhere in the past and a steampunk future, all grab the imagination of all who can see it. It is this fascination that also allows you access to the otherwise skeptical of those who don’t trust us engage them with trust.
But the same hindrance to shoot the Waist Level Finder, is also its strength. Capturing unique and candid portraits is a crowning achievement to the process, because there is nothing between the subject and the photographer/artist. Typically a lens body obstructs the photographer’s face as the subject becomes more disconnected. When you look at the portraits of Vivian Maier, someone who also used this camera, you can see candid qualities of people she barely knew, and them being captured at close range. Often times their eyelines are vectoring up to hers. I can only imagine that she probably engaged in conversation with them and spoke to get their attention and then a fired without looking. Capturing a real moment is all we want to do in portrait and in the street. For what I do for work as a Hollywood Cinematographer, often we stage the action and lighting, and constructively create the moment. But it’s the real moments we experience in life and photography that seem to inhabit our imagination. It’s that magic that allows us to stay engaged and enthusiastic about the process of discovery. Because at the end of the day, that’s what living is about, Discovery. And that’s the unfamiliar ground we want to constantly visit or even live in. Being connected to that discovery intimately with your subject, translates to the photograph in subconscious ways.
Lining up the 120 Roll with the load arrows, and then shutting and locking the door, and winding the first frame to the start is a feeling unmatched. The hefty weight of the bottom heavy body feels right. Left palm cupping the feet, while your right hand folds back the take up handle. The subtle clicks, and sounds of the non-electric fully manual device feels timeless because it is. Watching a video blogger wax poetic on youtube about this, is altogether different than experiencing it yourself. No lightmeter, no auto focus, and it’s square. How do I see the golden mean in a square?
Philosophically being both complete and incomplete at the same time is a flexible moment of consciousness that I really enjoy being in. It combines the idea of satisfaction with your current self, while still providing the option of discovery to reach new levels. That’s what living is, soaking in that moment, and watching how light attaches to the people and places around us, and watching how it grows inside. Capturing 6x6 film is an investment into the future version of yourself. The future person you will become, and the future gratification you get by taking that moment all by itself and seeing it processed and scanned and printed wondering the entire time if you nailed it or blew it.
Shooting on this camera reveals motive, and places it high upon the shelves in the library of questions you ask yourself. Whether they get answered or not, the fact is you are there, questioning yourself despite all your triumphs and failures, and between the great and dreadful moments, the ability to question yourself, allows you to be present without preset.
I walk the Pier, a stone’s throw from my place, and a popular destination of visitors and locals alike. I see the faces of the excited, the hopeful, the bored. I watch as the light wraps around them, and how there is a doppelgänger of almost each person I’ve seen that day, somewhere in the recess of the myriad of my past. My upstairs neighbor Joey, in college, resembles that Japanese tourist inspecting the menu outside the restaurant, same haircut, different stance, but almost a ringer. In the smile of the homeless woman, I saw Micah, a guy I used to skateboard with at the end of Monica Street, in my suburb of Orlando. But because of the 12 shots only in my hand, I’m selective. I study the way light moves. I study the people. I listen. I predict. In a sense I become meditative.
The sun is about 45 mins above the horizon of the ocean. The golden red rays are piercing the bodies of us. Shadows telegraphing Platonic shadows across the wood slats of this pier, like some allegory of the cave but here in Santa Monica instead of an ancient Grecian cave.
My eye sees something that could line up. I see a potential subject with another potential occurrence, so I briskly walk to get into position, only to see it doesn’t transpire. I replace the shutter button lock on the camera and breathe in what is.
If life is about discovery, then this Rolleiflex gives you a front row seat to finding that moment to quiet your mind, expectations, and most importantly ego. And learning you cannot force the image is key. Sometimes the best teaching moment is the photography that you don’t take.
This is the zen of finding your purpose outside of yourself. And if anything has an ability to do that, it is this camera.
As I look back across the memories that were recorded with this camera that I share with you below, I remember where I was, who I was with, and how I captured it, and how it felt, after the shutter fired and I felt honored to be there for that moment, inadvertently making bookmarks in the ongoing chapters of my life.
So if you are in a pickle, and you feel uninspired, and the digital camera is sitting there, capturing absolute perfection, give the imperfect a go with some film. And take some bad rolls. It’s okay. Rest in it, and load another. Because you’ll be closer to being incomplete than you’ve ever been. And once you’ve mastered that incompleteness, add another level of shooting on Rolleiflex. Your greatest subject could be connecting with you, in an honest and tangible reality. And the best part is, regardless of what happens, your mistakes and your triumphs cannot be easily deleted. But for certain, you’ll celebrate every shot in the same way you should celebrate every moment of the living.
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