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This is the end of an era. Yet another era is about to start. In the past few months, actually most of 2004, I had plenty of time to dedicate to my photography. It was a real comeback for me after a long break of about 7 years. With a little help of great friends. Changes in circumstances will give me considerably less time to spend on taking and looking at photos from now on, but I feel I had my opportunity and I used it. Looking back, I am quite happy with my work produced over the year. Especially the purchase of the Leica in February 2004 propelled me forward, which is strange because normally one should be suspicious about the effects of purchasing equipment. Nevertheless this was the case and the tool used for most of the recent galleries.

Since summer I am also processing my own black and white film again. Realistically speaking, I don’t know how much of a benefit this has given me. I got some of my best results by using the bargain Konica Pan 400 film and having it processed at the shop. I don’t think it is essential to do your own film, although it does offer a lot of benefits all related to the concept of controlling your process, which incidentally is also a keyword for the Leica camera. Control was a big theme for me in 2004, or to be more precise, when to exercise control and when to relinquish it. In that sense the whole street photography experience was brilliant, because you have to accept you are not in control of what is happening in front of you. You have to accept and work what you are being given, which is why I believe it becomes one of the most demanding and fascinating photographic sub-disciplines. More precisely, I am more inclined towards the instance of street photography with people in it, not static street scenes, which for me are variations of landscapes. Should you fail to understand the role of control and keep insisting on maintaining it over what is happening in front of you, you are likely to end up with images driven by reason alone, which is the opposite of the essence of life itself, and your pictures will end up looking cold and rational, empty in spirit.

To close out 2004, in September I acquired a 4×5 view camera and have since then been working with that. It isn’t easy to transplant the working method of a smaller camera to this larger beast. And maybe transplanting is the wrong strategy anyway. A long learning curve followed and I am still in it. An old Japanese chap told me on Ginza:”このカメラでスナップできない。””You cannot take snapshots with this camera.” I disagreed and felt challenged. I think it is possible, but more importantly is that really my objective to photograph dynamically with a highly non-dynamic tool?

The link on the photo above takes you to what I think I my best results so far using that camera. I added some commentary as well, which I hope you may find interesting. I appreciate any feedback on those. I feel I am still a long way off from what I wanted to achieve with that camera, even though I have no concrete goal. But the first thing I realised is that things slow down considerably – which is not a bad thing. I could spend an afternoon shooting and having taken only half a dozen photos. However the keeper ratio overall improves since there is a lot more thinking and selecting going on, and more thinking work with the subject. This has to be a good thing. Do I feel constrained? Not really. It is a new way of working and poses an enormous challenge which I don’t think I have overcome yet. Which is a good thing.