Here’s Ben’s ugly mug so you can recognise us on arrival:

© Ben Anderson

© Ben Anderson

I primarily shoot using a Mamiya 7II 6×7 rangefinder, it’s a wonderfully simple camera to shoot with. The camera has a couple of viewfinder idiosyncrasies to overcome when you first start out with it*, but once you know what to expect from the framing it is really rather liberating to use. It is quiet, relatively compact, and above all incredibly portable.

The fact that it is a rangefinder means the camera is very easy to hand hold, removing the necessity for a tripod in all but the most extreme situations. This means you can shoot quickly and inconspicuously in many more situations than when carrying a cumbersome tripod. The upshot of this is that this camera has become almost like an extension of my body, it is with me almost all of the time. So it is particularly wrenching when the camera breaks. And it has done it twice now.

I don’t get much time to shoot which means I plan what I’m going to do – I like to take random meanderings from what are normally A-B routes, this way I find new rat runs for commutes whilst also reccying new locations to shoot. I also spend a fair amount of time using google maps satellite view to explore possible locations (as I know others do). Turning up at one of these locations to have my camera freeze after frame 1 is disappointing to say the least. The most recent time this happened I wasted 2 rolls by reloading to check if it was just some bizarre jam. Alas No – another day wasted, another month and a bit away for repair: 3 out of 11 months without the camera to date.

With the camera now safely back in hand I’m shortly heading out to run a roll through, hopefully this time 7 will once again be my lucky number.

* with a 65mm lens, parallax issues mean the frame lines crop peoples feet for full length close up portraits, and images at infinity are approx 20% larger than the frame lines.

© Ben Anderson

I’ve been shooting in and around Leeds using my 7 for the last two weeks, trying to get a feel for the hidden parts of the city, urban monoliths, vegetation, the odd human in the urbanscape, etc. I’m taking 12 rolls of 120 in to the lab at lunch time and can already feel my excitement growing, it’ll reach fever pitch at about the time I get the archival sheets handed back to me tomorrow.

About 5 minutes later whilst sitting behind the wheel in the lab car park I’ll be holding the negs up to the light and feeling either crestfallen or elated. Then comes the mad rush to the scanner.

This is Film.

Given that the majority of the books I’ve bought are Science Fiction, and complete series at that, where can I possibly expect to start? These books feel like a tangible part of my persona, choosing which to keep and which to discard will for all intents and purposes feel like editing out parts of my own psyche.

So perhaps I’m being a little over sensitive, but where would you start given the same predicament?

Thanks!