50 years ago I got my first camera. No, I didn’t buy it myself. My parents eventually gave in to my pestering. It was my cousin Helmut’s fault, the hero of my childhood. With his 8 mm camera he made wonderful (short) films. I wanted to do that too.

The days of Super 8

My (rather short) career as a filmmaker began at the tender age of about 13 years with a Super 8 camera from Revue, a brand made by Quelle, a then well known mail order company. Here you can find a picture of this sweetheart. From then on, my small pocket money went into the procurement of Super 8 film cassettes and the production of stop-motion films, preferably using my Wiking truck collection.

But I soon realized that my films were mostly a string of (more or less) beautiful still pictures. I was and still am not a storyteller. So my time as an aspiring filmmaker ended after a few years and I turned to photography.

The early years

My first camera was a Konica Autoreflex A3, which of course came with the 50 mm prime lens that was mandatory at that time. It already had the remarkable initial aperture of 1:1.7! From now on, my pocket money logically went to the purchase of films. Preferably black and white films, which I developed and enlarged in my makeshift darkroom (the parental kitchen was converted for this purpose …). The negatives from that time I actually still have.

I mainly photographed landscapes. That was easy, because landscapes always remain still. My great role model was Ansel Adams, of course, even though the North German Plain is not nearly as impressive as the American national parks. And also technically I could not quite keep up with the great master …

The student years

During my studies photography naturally took up less space in my life. For once I was only able to develop and print my films during the rather rare visits to my parents. In my 12 square meter student dormitory there was simply no room for it. Nevertheless, I upgraded my camera a little bit and bought a Konica Autoreflex T4 with Auto Winder. What I needed the winder for is no longer clear to me. But it felt highly professional, not having to wind the film by hand anymore and being able to shoot an amazing 2 frames/second. By the way, Konica was the first company to completely dispense with the lever for the film transport. This was very controversial at that time, as people did not really trust the motorized film winders.

Traveling and taking photographs

My “travel and photography phase” began shortly after my student days. For the summer of 1987 I had planned a big trip to the USA together with two (former) fellow students. For this trip I had bought a used Rolleiflex 2000 F with a zoom lens that was quite unusual at that time, in addition to the Konicas. However, during a burglary shortly before the trip, all my photo equipment (and some more) was stolen. The insurance company was very accommodating and so I was able to buy a Rolleiflex 3003, the successor of the 2000 F, as well as a number of lenses that covered the impressive (for those days) focal length range of 21 mm to 400 mm. Thanks to the interchangeable film backs of the 3003, I was able to expose slide films and black and white films in parallel.

From 1988 on, I had a real, permanently installed darkroom at my disposal. Although I had no running water, it was a real progress and I could finally emulate my great idol Ansel Adams, knowing that I would never reach him. But after reading his books intensively, I soon realized that the 35mm format would no longer meet my quality standards. So medium format it was. By a favourable circumstance I was able to buy a used Rolleiflex SL 66 with three Zeiss lenses. The large 6×6 cm negatives provided an image quality that simply could not be achieved with the 35 mm format.

As the SL 66 was quite big and heavy, the slightly lighter Rolleiflex 2.8 GX twin lens reflex (TLR) was added to my inventory. The Planar HFT 2.8/80 mm is one of the best lenses I ever had in any photo bag.

Now I had really tasted blood. An even bigger format was needed. I decided on the 4×5″ format (a little larger than 9×12 cm) and a monorail view camera . Since I couldn’t afford Linhof or Arca Swiss, it became a Japanese Horseman 450. Those who have never worked with a view camera before can hardly imagine how different the photographic approach is compared to 35mm or medium format. Working with such a camera gives a whole new meaning to the term “deceleration”.

Unfortunately, the purchase of this camera resulted in further investments. Especially a new enlarger for the large negatives and of course a new enlarging lens had to be purchased. And also my tripod was not up to this camera anymore. But at least I had come a little bit closer to my idol in terms of equipment, if not artistically.

The end of analog photography

Since Simone and I had already set up our own business at the end of the 1990s and wanted to make money with photography, we couldn’t get around digital photography. Therefore, we sold all of our analog photographic equipment in 2005. A complete system change was pending, as neither Rollei nor Olympus (Simone’s preferred system) had professional digital cameras in their range.

The switch to the digital world was not difficult for us. However, the cameras are now pure tools of the trade and we no longer have the emotional attachment to our tools as we used to. Therefore, at this point we should stop. But maybe you will find a review of my personal photographic development in the last 50 years in another blog …