March was cold and damp, and, as a result, I took a lot of pictures indoors. Instead of the beautiful summer pictures from my last post, you'll get gloomy shots with an expired roll of Kodak Tri-X!

The film experiments continue, this time with a Kowa Six I recently acquired. The Kowa is a Japanese copy of a Hasselblad - it's a bruiser of a camera, with a big mirror and a big 80mm f/2.8 lens for its big 2 1/4" square negative. Big, big, big.

I'm not sure how I feel about shooting in square format. It feels weird when you're composing, but I really like how the pictures look. There's just so much detail and subtlety in medium format images, and the square frame introduces a different geometric bias than a rectangular frame.

To be honest, I'm not sure how much I'll use the Kowa, or how far I'll be able to pursue shooting film. I bought the Kowa because I wanted to see how far I would take the film experiment in medium format, or if it shooting film was even worth pursuing. After just one roll, I was hooked on shooting film, but undecided on the camera - it's just not that practical for my regular work, but it's a nice change for personal projects. It might make a nice portrait camera, especially with the softer optics on the 80mm f/2.8 lens.

I am really beginning to enjoy how film forces me to slow down and think about what I'm shooting. The different film stocks are also fun to experiment with, and Tri-X is a just wonderful. "Luscious" is the word that comes to mind: beautiful, subtle gray tones, with just the right amount of contrast. Love it, love it, love it.