Brock and Sage, photographed early in 2022. I photographed their wedding, too, so I’ll post some of those at some point. Brock’s is also a photographer and loves shooting film so that seemed like as good as any to use a camera I love using, my Rollei twin lens camera.
Back in the 90’s, there was in Salt Lake an organization called The Salt Lake Print Society. I don’t know if it still exists. A quick Google search turned up a website with that name, but I can’t tell how current.
Every year they would have a garage sale, and people would set up tables and sell their used and unwanted gear. I went a couple times and on one occasion, bought an interesting camera called a Rollei 35. It’s a 35mm film camera that’s very tiny, smaller than a fist. Many years later I ended up trading it for another camera that I’d use more often from my friend Jeff Archibald. He’s given me a few real gems.
The other camera I bought at the Print Society garage sale was a twin lens Rolleiflex. The one I have was manufactured in Germany in 1958. (That’s before the internet!) I can’t remember how much I paid for it, but I remember it was a stretch at the time and I wasn’t sure if I was making a good choice. But very early on after getting it and putting it to work, I realized that it was a real smart buy. So I patted myself on the back for being real wise. I remember Kent Miles was walking around the garage sale that day and I asked him if I should get it. He encouraged me to do so. So maybe I should have patted Kent on the back.
One time I sent it in for a camera’s version of an oil change. It cost me $500 for repairs and cleaning and getting the thing in tip-top condish. And I’m still using it.
It’s not the camera for everything, but for me, I love using it when photographing individuals and couples. There’s something about the square format that is well suited for that kind of subject matter. Some of my favorite pictures that I’ve ever taken were taken on that camera.
So here are three pictures from the engagement session of Brock and Sage with the Rollei. I took lots of other pictures with my digital camera that day, too, and I love of lot of those. But as much as I love digital photography, it’s just really hard to duplicate the look of a square film image combined with Tri-X 400 film.
