The first camera I ever fell in love with was old, battered, and used. It belonged to my Uncle Author, who for years, covered weddings, banquets and anything else that helped pay the rent. He told me, “This is a damn good camera!” He placed it in front of me and gave me 10 minutes of instructions. Being polite as I could, I said, “Thank you”. I brought the camera home and let it sit on a shelf for two weeks before I picked it up and decided to do something with it. The camera was a medium format Mamiya C330 TLR. Fully manual, no light meter, boxy and heavy, I loaded it with some 120 black and white film and took a few shots at a local park. I brought the film home to develop and reviewed my disastrous results. How could this camera be any good? The camera sat on the shelf for another three months until I came across two books that would expound everything I knew about photography: “Zone VI Workshop” by Fred Picker and “The Negative” by Ansel Adams. I read these books from cover to cover, committing what I could to memory and highlighting everything else. I gave the camera another try and took it out again, and again, and again. That was 30 years ago. Since then that original Mamiya has been supplemented with a mint Mamiya C330, a Hasselblad, a Mamiya RZ.
This web page is a thank you to my Uncle Author (and his partner in crime, my Grand Daddy James) for giving me a way to see the world through the lens of a camera.
Thank-you and please enjoy.
Ken Snowden Photography