On how to get half creative again My appeal for photography has been consistently low the past few months. Last Christmas, like every year, I took part of the migration that leaves Paris empty in winter. On the road to Southern France, it came to mind that I forgot to take a film camera for […]
Minox 35: Size does not matter When I was in high school, my father brought me a funny camera from his travels to Ukraine. It was a Kiev 35A, an almost perfect copy of the Minox 35 GT. It was manufactured by Arsenal in Kiev, along amazing lenses and copies; but this is a whole […]
An amazing community Quarantine hit in March 2020. Not long after, I started to contribute to an analog photography zine launched by a few dedicated Twitter users: The Quarantine Zine. Every month, the team picked a theme. Anybody could submit a photo and a caption. Those contributing received a printed version by mail. Holding this […]
Nikon F4: heavy duty In 2019, my grand father passed away. Back at my parents’ house, my father set all the cameras my grandfather owned on a table. From Leicas to Rolleiflex, the selection was quite remarkable. At the end of the table throned a bulky monster: the Nikon F4. I immediately developed an aversion […]
The Story Is it a Leica? Close enough. This is a Zorki 1 type e. This camera, produced between 1950 and 1956, was, at the very beginning, attempting to copy the Leica II in order to offer the Soviet people a cheap, reliable and luxurious camera. The intent to reproduce the Leica is evidenced by the first models […]
For an upcoming project — Do not worry, I will keep you informed —, I acquired a view camera for forty euros on eBay. No brand, no logo. It comes with 6 glass-plates holders. That is all the seller’s description contained. When I unpacked it, I expected to discover, under the protection paper, a stack of […]
#1 A time machine camera 1930s, Germany. The economy is booming, and Dresden is an important European center for camera manufacturing. Since the 1850s, this eastern city easily became the German heart of photographic paper, and from then, of camera manufacturing. This remained until the 1990s. At that time, Welta, Balda and Certo offered a similar range of cameras: medium format […]
If you read my blog — thank you for that, you saw that the Meopta Flexaret VI I own was not working anymore, which is a shame since I really like that camera. Shadowed by the legendary Rolleiflex, the Czech Meopta Flexaret were luxurious, discrete, twin-lens cameras at least as mechanically complex as the Rolleiflex. It […]
Since 2012, I stopped printing pictures at home. Too complicated? Too time-consuming? I quite do not remember but the fact is I only developed films and scanned negatives. After all that time, I felt the need to be able to accomplish again the whole process, from the photo shoot to the final print. In 2015, one […]
Around 1900, photographers only used medium format cameras, for the 35mm format did not exist at that time. The main problem was that the bigger the film is, the further the lens must be. That is why we have the image of the old days’ photographer, carrying his wooden box around, deploying the beast into a long leather […]
April 16, 1945, the Soviet Union engages the last Nazi forces in what would be called later the Battle of Berlin. World War II is at an end. The American army is rushing towards the East, and enters the little town of Jena, 160 miles southwest of Berlin, heavily bombed by the allies. Knowing the War was […]
