I like to consider my self a photo purist gone digital, out of necessity that is.
While living in NYC a few years back I was blessed to inherit my beloved 1950's-ish Rolleiflex medium format, TLR (Twin Lens Reflex) camera.
It changed my eye forever.
I've always tried to shoot medium and large format films when ever possible. (Time is slim these days sadly) There's not a digital or 35mm camera that can touch the painterly quality and ethereal details that these films capture, whatever camera you instal it into.
Here's my owed to film featuring my favorite subject, Safina Stella.
©Vicky Scesa 2011, All Rights Reserved
I posed her in our backyard in the early morning with the sun hitting her back and a gold reflector to her left at 45 deg's.
What I saw through the TIMELESS waist-level viewfinder was my own photographic version of a Degas. Pastels are my favorite medium next to film, and this camera grants me that same texture, in my mind anyway.
The Rollei's Depth of Field is extremely shallow and the focal range doesn't allow for close ups so it's extremely tricky to capture a moving subject, especially a baby, while maintaining selective focus.
There's 11 more exposures like this but it's intense to get a good film scan as my local lab did a less than perfect job of processing the film and were so kind to leave chemical marks and dust on the film which means enduring the dreadful process of PHOTOSHOPPING my film, NIGHTMARE, TRAGEDY!!!
One day, she'll kill me for posting this online, if there still is an "online".
Happy Shooting, Vicky
Photo Credit: wikimedia.org
