Me. The Beast. And Polaroids. Things I See. (Warsaw IN Film Photographer)

I have this film camera... it's called the Mamiya RB-67 Pro. I call it The Beast. Seriously. It weighs almost 6 lbs with the lens & back attached. I bought it because it was cheap, and I was dying to try medium format film, but I also bought it because it came with a Polaroid back- and if I was dying to try MF, then I was practically in the ground about shooting instant film! Instants have become rather trendy again, which to me, is a great thing, because it means you can still purchase instant film!

For me, instants means a slice of life- a little taste of what is a much bigger thing. You don't shoot a roll- you shoot a frame. And in that frame is a tiny essence. I've recently started shooting 3 or 4 instants during weddings- to give to the couple. They aren't meant to replace the professional photos we take throughout the day, but rather to give them something to take away- to treasure instantly.

Anyway, this is me- with The Beast:

See what I mean? That sucker is huge! But I love it- and I really love working with it. So here is more of what I've captured in the last few months, just grabbing it occasionally, and making some instant magic-

 Sam, of course, my muse when testing new things, and the bleached negative from a non-opaque scanner-

One of the last photos ever taken of Sam with his precious Lizy-

 A test to see if I had correctly guessed this exposure, by just using the Sunny 16 rule & math in my head- the intention was a silhouette, so GO ME!

 Family Life- Lokai beats up Felix daily, and the amusing part is Fi could easily kick his butt if he were so inclined!

 Sleepy Puppy (this one is a bit blurry because I was trying to handhold down to 1/15th of a second...)

 And overexposed puppy- The Beast doesn't have an internal light meter, so I sometimes just guess the metering for personal exposures. (Even the exposures I meter for don't always turn out quite right... still some learning to do, I guess!)