At the end of April, my wife and I traveled to New York for a long weekend to visit some good friends and do a bit of touristy sightseeing. I took the opportunity to leave my DSLR at home and shoot only with my Rolleiflex.
New York City
Film
Back to film
Earlier this year I finally got my 1954 Rolleiflex Automat repaired. It’s been a vintage paperweight since 2012 when the camera strap failed in a rainstorm and fell onto the sidewalk in the Chicago Loop. Thanks to Mark Hansen for going through the camera and repairing the busted viewfinder. I have shot film on and off again since 2010, primarily with a Holga. To test out the repair and to (re)teach myself how to shoot on the Rollei, I exposed a few rolls and sent them off to The Find Lab. Here are the results of a few recent jaunts around IU’s campus:
Indiana University through a plastic lens
I recently dusted off my Holga and shot a few rolls of 120 for the first time in years. As much as I love Instagram, it was nice to shoot without the instant gratification. My goal is to shoot more with my Holga this summer to force myself to be less reliant on the screen on the back of my digital SLRs. I feel like I often get into a rut where I’m shooting, shooting, shooting and not really seeing or thinking. That’s the great thing about the Holga: it forces me back to basics.
Blue and Gold and Black and White
Being that it was my third year photographing Notre Dame’s Blue-Gold spring football game, I decided to dust off my Holga and try something a bit different.
Lest We Forget
I photographed a local WWII re-enactment back in June on a Lake Michigan beach. Primarily I shot using two DSLRs, but I managed to sneak in a few frames here and there using my Holga. Originally I had planned to use my Rolleiflex, but alas it remains a $220 paperweight on my bookshelf after a camera strap failure lead to its early demise during a May trip to Chicago.
