Uncle Jonesy's Cameras: One Camera One Lens Challenge

Dear Beloved Readers,

I want to begin this post with an apology (which is not the most positive way of starting this post, but it is quite necessary, as will be seen).

I haven't posted in over a month. My excuse? (Wait for it.) I am a public school teacher in northwest Georgia, and our summer ended on August 1. Now, I know that most of you do not get a two-month break in your job, but, on the other hand, MARTA bus drivers in Atlanta receive a hight hourly wage than most public school teachers, so there's that. Back to my excuse. The beginning of a school year is very time consuming, and I simply haven't been able to devote any time for blog writing until now. I want you to know that I value you readers more than you will ever know, and you deserve regular, if not high quality, content (actually, you deserve that, too). Hopefully, I will keep a better schedule now that the school year is underway.

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post.

At the end of July my wife, Debbie, and I traveled by air to Seattle to visit our daughter, Amber, and her partner, Matthew. We had a wonderful and memorable time visiting these two very special people, and, of course, I planned to shoot some film while there. My original plan was to go the safe route by bringing my two Nikon bodies (an FE and an FM2n - one for B&W and one for color), a 28mm and a 105mm lens, and as much 35mm film as I could carry in my backpack, which was the only luggage I planned to take. I knew it would be heavy, but I was confident I could deal with it.

Then I read somewhere online (I wish I could remember where) of someone taking the "one camera one lens challenge," whereby one only packs one camera and one lens for a trip. I couldn't help but think about how much easier that would be for me, but I was really intrigued by the challenge of tying to meet all my photography goals with just one camera and one lens. And it didn't take me long to choose one camera and one lens. My Rolleicord Va.

Talk about challenge! A sixty year-old camera with a fixed focal length lens with no meter that takes more expensive film, a roll of which only yields twelve exposures. Was I crazy? Who knows when we will be able to visit Seattle again? Certainly not anytime soon. This was risky, and I was in.

Actually, it was quite fun. I enjoyed getting to know the Rolleicord, which, as a twin lens reflex camera, required a much different workflow than what I was used to with SLR's. I also liked being forced to evaluate light and exposure settings without a meter (I did occasionally use the Lightmeter app on my iPhone, but mostly I used "sunny 16.") And, I love the square format and the larger negatives.

As I moved about in Seattle, I could not help be think about Vivian Meier. If you have not heard about her, then do some research. I am an unabashed fan of her work (more about that in a future post).

However, using a camera similars to hers (she use several Rolleiflex models) was daunting. Certainly for me, the camera slows the photographic process way down. Judging the light, setting exposure, focusing (in reverse), and composing all must take place before pushing the shutter button. Yet, Vivian Meier was able to shoot more film in afternoon than many of us shoot in a month. And her results? Well, like I said, do some research.

Of course, my prime objective was to have fun and do the best I could to make some quality photographs. And I did. At least the fun part. The photos? I like them. That's all that matters to me.

All photos were home processed and scanned on an Epson V500 using the Epson software.