Exposing the Film

Starting my career in still photography just 4 years ago there is one thing that many photographers cannot believe that I have never done, well at least until now. In the last several weeks I have started shooting medium format 120 film in my Mamiya RB67 camera. I admit I have always thought these photographers that were amazed at the fact that I have never shot film were full of it. I mean what could be so great about it anyway? Well after shooting my first roll I can tell you I am hooked. Each roll in the Mamiya has room for 10 exposures before changing it out which is a huge change from my 32 gig memory cards in my digital cameras. For my first roll of film I used color in the camera sending it off to a photo lab in southern Kansas. It took me nearly five days to complete my 10 exposures on this roll before I carefully sealed the film up and took it to the post office and sent it off for processing. The next week and a half was brutal waiting to see what my shots looked like. So many thoughts running through your head while waiting to see the final product, like did I meter that shot correctly? I was checking my P.O Box nearly daily to see if the package arrived and finally nine days after it was sent it arrived in my possession. Literally ripping the package open in the post office to check out all 10 of my 4x5 prints attached with the negatives. I was mind blown when I saw the quality of the colors and images this camera and roll of film produced. There was one problem I discovered, I have a light leak in the film area allowing the film to become exposed to natural light causing a blue strip across the images. I since have ordered a new film back for the camera to (hopefully) fix that problem. 

Below are the 10 exposures from my first roll of film.

This was the first exposure on the new camera and
 probably the most complicated photo incorporating
three strobe units and wireless triggers.

The second exposure of Bird bridge South of Emporia.

The third exposure was just a standard portrait of
Madeline in a wheat field on a sunny evening.

The fourth exposure was off te the Hwy. 99 bridge
South of town looking at the Rainbow bridge
over the  Cottonwood River,

Fifth was the boat house at Peter Pan Park.

The sixth exposure was probably my favorite of them
 all looking across Wooster Lake on the campus
 of Emporia State University.

Seventh a train sitting in the Emporia yard.
Trying to expose to the sunset and ended up
exposing to the shadows.

Eighth is a one second exposure of downtown
 at night.

Ninth an old airplane right during the noon hour with a
directly overhead sun.

The final exposure was of a crop dusterSouth of Emporia.

This is just the beginning of a new side of photography for me. My next goal is to develop black and white at home...
-Matt