Just before Christmas I temporarily swapped cameras with my friend, he now has my square format Hasselblad 500c/m and I have taken in to care his beast of a Mamiya RZ67. I love to borrow and swap cameras, it's a chance to experience a different machine, feel and see what can be produced and well just try something else. The Mamiya is big and feels like a statement even before I take the lens cap off. Its 70 x 56mm negatives are also big, full of detail and easily the equal of what I'm used to in terms of image quality. For me, it's a refreshing change to have landscape and portrait available and in the case of the RZ67 via a nifty switch and revolving back, so there is no need to turn this monster of a camera on its side. But best of all I have three superb Mamiya Sekor lenses to play with, a wide 50mm, standard 90mm and portrait 127mm. It really is a great camera but be warned you'll need a battery and probably a tripod!
Moreover, I've finally bought some chemicals to develop my own black and white film and so now after a 29-year hiatus I getting my hands wet again. Back then I processed black and white film for a living. I worked in the darkest reaches of a lab where I spent most of the day sleeping and developing the odd roll of film, that was until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The lab had a contract with the Racing Post, a daily newspaper dedicated to horse racing. Every day the sports photographers would drop off their day's films, anything between 30 and 50 rolls of the stuff and I only had two hours before they collected them again for the printers. And so I'm kind of an experienced novice! With tanks, thermometer and jugs in hand, I lost no time and so here are four photos from my first two rolls, well my first since 1986!
