Learning To Play With New Toys

A few of the first shots from my "new" Mamiya RB67 Pro.  The Holga is a total medium format gateway drug of a camera.  It's is very fun and gets you to appreciate the possibilities of the larger negatives, but it is not exactly a precision instrument.  I was looking for something that would give me better control and the RB67s have a good rep and are going for a song on the used market.  I picked up a body and standard lens on eBay and a couple more lenses from keh.com.  The Mamiya is a complete monster, it's got to weight at least 10 pounds, and is built like a tank - not exactly a street shooter - but so far has been living up to its hype.  Shooting with it is a lot more involved than with your standard 35mm slr, but I can't argue with the end results - big, gorgeous negatives.  What's not to like?

Garlic Scapes, June 2011, Chicago IL
(Mamiya RB67Pro, 90mm f3.8, Fomopan 400, developed by 120processing.com, scanned self w/Epson V600)

The photos were taken in my apartment's backyard, over the fence into our neighbor's garden.  The back yards of the neighbors on either side of our place put our backyard to shame.  On one side, we have a landscape artist whose place could be featured in a magazine.  On the other side we have an older Cuban gentleman, who has cultivated about a third of his yard into a lush garden.  He is getting on in years, but you will still see him most afternoons puttering around with his wide, floppy straw hat, his cigar, and his khaki shorts.  (We should all only hope to be so cool in our old age.)