52 photographs (2018) #51: Ancient light

52 photographs (2018) #51: Ancient light

The Rolleiflex 2.8C that my friend Mr. Seagull ‘loaned’ me on such generous terms came back from repair, just in time for the Christmas break. It was made some time in the early 1950s. After being thoroughly serviced at Photo Suffren it was fully returned to working order. I had had been plagued by randomly blurry images which in the end had nothing to do with focus (how could that go wrong on a Rollei where both lenses are fixed together on the same bit of metal) but was in fact simply a problem of film transport. So after picking up the camera I went out and shot a roll of Tri-X in the streets around the shop.

Ancient light

That evening, I anxiously developed that first roll of film in my 70-year-old ‘new’ Rolleiflex. I was relieved to see the images were all sharp and in focus. But sadly, I am afraid that the weather was overcast and cloudy and not a ray of light was to had. But there’s still something there, a certain ‘medium format’ look. It’s funny, in the days when the Rollei was the press photographer’s camera of choice, medium format was the ‘normal’ format size, and Leicas were ‘miniature’ format…

Why “Ancient Light” ? Because I simply wonder about all the light that has passed through this camera since it was made, seventy years ago…

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