Embracing the Weight

Hello again, It’s been a stretch since the last check-in, but time away wasn’t wasted. I have been very busy in preparing for my upcoming travels. Every journey needs its quiet grind. I left California a while back, traded coastlines for the Midwest. It’s a different kind of terrain out here. Not just the landscape, but the air itself. Been here a couple of months now, adapting to the elements because the weather has been a bit of a rollercoaster. Testing me like a sparring partner that doesn’t care how tired you are with the unpredictable rain storms, bone cracking cold days with a warm summer like day stuck randomly in-between. You either adapt, or you fold.

On a recent stop in Indianapolis Indiana, I came across Used Photo Pro; didn’t plan on it nor expect it and wasn’t on my map. But sometimes the path shifts and you follow your instinct, that’s how most good encounters go. Inside finding a nicely priced Mamiya C33 TLR, a tank of a camera. Heavy. And yes, I could not pass it up.

Yeah, I’ve already got more gear than I probably should be dragging around. But, I'm not going to avoid this burden. I will learn how to bear it, move with it, turn it into strength.

So this post will be my thoughts on this wonderful beast. I’m starting to think I have a fetish for the Mamiya built monsters and I keep finding myself drawn to them.

6x6 (Square) — The Mamiya C-33 Life

• You’re composing in a perfect square. That’s discipline embodied.

• You’re not guided by width or height, so the frame doesn’t “lean” in any direction. It’s all about balance, symmetry, and central focus.

• Your subject often wants to be centered, or at least heavily balanced.

• Negative space is a tool in demand, not an accident waiting to happen.

• You’ve gotta think differently. You don’t get to lean on the “rule of thirds” the same way you need to play with geometry, contrast, and/or quiet stillness.

And with the C33, you’re looking down into the waist-level finder, which flips the image left-to-right. So:

• Movement left to right in the real world feels opposite in the viewfinder.

• You compose more deliberately, almost like painting. Slower, and much richer.

  
  

The Square Is Sacred

6x6 is Zen. It strips away the distraction of "should I go portrait or landscape?". It invites symmetry, balance, tension and all that visual poetry. It forces you to slow down and see, not just look. Imagine framing a lone monk walking past an ancient wall, the symmetry becomes spiritual. And in a medium where travel photography often gets bloated with cliché, 6x6 is discipline.

It Slows You Way Down (In a Good Way)

You don’t spray and pray with medium format. Film’s expensive, the camera is often manual, and you’ve only got 12 shots on a roll. That’s why making every frame count when shooting travel photography is golden. Causing you to engage more deeply with your environment. You will want to take the time and wait for that cloud to move just right. You listen to the rhythm of a place before you click the shutter. It’s not just documentation, it’s respect to the location and devotion to improving your skills.

Film Is Tangible Memories

There’s something almost rebellious about shooting medium format film in the age of smartphones. Each frame you take is a physical thing, a commitment. When you come home with a contact sheet full of 6x6 squares, you’re not just looking at pictures you’re holding pieces of time. No algorithm is going to throw that into a feed and make it vanish in 24 hours.

Study The Light

That Depth of Field? Cinematic. Period.

You can get this crazy falloff where your subject feels sculpted by light and shadow. Backgrounds melt like butter, foregrounds pop as if your looking into 3D space. You shoot a portrait of a street vendor with the Himalayas soft in the distance, and boom you’ve got a frame that doesn’t just show where you were, it feels like what it was like to be there.

Okay, Let’s Keep It Real:

• Medium format gear is heavy. The Mamiya C-33 ain’t going in your jacket pocket.

• You need to be patient. No rushing. No instant gratification.

• Film's pricey. Developing costs, scanning Time and cost, it adds up.

But if you’re after art, not content, and if you’re about the sacred pause, not the scroll the 6x6 medium format is a gospel worth preaching.

The vibe? Shooting 6x6 with the C33 feels like writing a performance of haiku: tight, poetic, and full of restraint. Every frame is a square stage and you’re the choreographer and the composition is the dancer. It’s not about what’s easy it’s going to be about what brings awareness. Every time I load film into one of these beast, I'll feel like I’m entering a form, a kata. Practicing clarity. Practicing presence.

I’ve started to think to only select the RB67, the 645 and the C33 as the lineup in this journey. Like a new sparring partner. Demanding. Fresh, and Honest to the art.

So this post is the beginning of this journey and story. Me and these tools with no guarantees where it’ll lead, knowing that’s part of the path. Cameras, like blades, only become part of you with time, use, and respect. I’m not here to chase easy frames. I’m here to create.

More to come soon. Stay sharp.