Lockers at dusk, by Dirk Rösler. 1s at f16 on Polaroid 79

I don’t know why I keep shooting large format. It is cumbersome, heavy, slow, expensive, prone to error and the final results could probably be achieved with even the digi on a tripod [but then perhaps not]. Yet, it is so enjoyable somehow and I have successfully tried several times lugging out the monorail and tripod while being on the road with baby. It just about works.

Yesterday the missus went out for an afternoon to see some friends and it was just me and Theobald at home alone. So when we took a walk I decided to take the view camera with me and see if I could pull it off, shooting large format while being with a one-year old.

We took a walk around the neighbourhood (not using baby car, I have to add). It was about to rain again and getting dark at around 5pm. I almost did not even manage to set it all up, but in the end I shot two pictures, one at an ongoing football match between university teams and this one. I made the interesting observation that not being able to fully concentrate on taking pictures is quite challenging, but at the same time it prevents me complicating matters and ‘think’ only of essentials. This intuitive way of working seems to cut out a lot of the preconceived things going on in the mind, things that normally get in the way of takings pictures freely. The constrained way of working makes you take risks, which is a good thing.