enter the texas leica

for the past months I was looking for a fast hand-holdable eye-level larger-than-6x6 camera. I've had my fair share of medium format SLRs and I wanted a camera I could easily carry with me, fast to take out of the bag, fast to focus and shoot - a rangefinder medium format camera. ideally this would be the mamiya 7 or the plaubel makina 67, but they kept staying out of my budget, so I looked around to the fuji rangefinder cameras. enter the fuji gw690iii - a 6x9 rangefinder camera with a fixed 90mm/f3.5 lens (considered normal to roughly wide-angle for 6x9), nicknamed "texas leica" because it looks like a leica rangefinder's big brother, with cowboy hat and boots on, something the stranger from big lebowski would carry.

it's a big beast (has to be, what with the 6x9 negative it's producing) but still fits easily in my messenger bag, and it's less cumbersome and heavy than my 6x6 SLRs. its leaf shutter and the absence of a mirror box means that I can get my shutter speeds as low as 1/15 without breaking a sweat. moreover, 6x9 means I get the same 3:2 image ratio I've been using on my 35mm cameras, and only 8 frames on a roll of 120 film.

but how does it perform, portrait-wise? well, I loaded it up with an expired roll of kodak portra 400nc and went out for a windy seaside walk with the dear sisters, miss d. and miss m. - the wind battled us in every step we made and I learned a valuable lesson: your camera, your clothes and your car can get really salty after a couple of hours walking next to the breaking waves, even if you don't get a single drop of water on you.

this camera is definitely a different experience than SLR/TLR 6×6. the four-years-past-the-expiry-date film riddled the photos with streaks of discoloration, but I couldn't care less. miss d. is starring in all of the following photographs.

wasted youth,cinema magazine, issue 220

After the portraiture work on the winter issue of Cinema magazine,  I also got involved in the spring issue (#220), taking portraits of the directors and some of the cast of the hit movie Wasted Youth.

The location we chose was Tora K44 at Gazi, with respect to the movie's association with that particular venue. It was March 2011, the day was growing bigger and luckily K44 is facing west, so I could make the most out of the setting sun's light.

Despite the tight time frame (it was two days before the magazine was sent for printing), I wanted to use medium format, so I opted for the Bronica SQ-A along with a handful of Kodak Portra 400NC films. I also had my dSLR with me, to serve as a lightmeter and to take backup shots.

In the beginning I tried the dSLR for quick portraits, just to be on the safe side, but I wasn't really thrilled by the results so I immediately switched to the Bronica. I have to admit that I never got the hand of using a dSLR for anything apart from concert/event/low-light photography - I really feel much more at ease using medium format for anything that doesn't require fast paced action or really high ISO. When I had the Bronica in my hands, everything felt easier.

I did the standalone portraits first:

[argiris papadimitropoulos]

[jan vogel]

[the gang]

[argiris & jan]

...and then I set up the tripod for the group photo, which would be the most troublesome of all, since I had to overcome low shutter speed (1/15-1/30 because of the rapidly diminishing available light) and the unwanted movements of five people and... the dog of Argiris.

...which proved quite hard, considering the dog had specific views about the legs he found on his way:

[leg-lovin']

...after the dog did his thing with the desired legs, we settled down to get one frame with everybody staying still and composed at the same time:

[wasted youth]

...although the magazine chose to publish the first group photo because  (I guess) it was funnier. I would be seriously torn between the spontaneity of the first photo as opposed to the politically-correct stillness of the second photo, but happily this decision was not mine to take.