Bringing the Mamiya RZ67 Pro II out for some still life shots

Since you never know when inspiration strikes I always keep some film stock ready in the fridge for immediate use. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that some 120 (medium format) rolls of Ilford Pan F Plus were nearing their expiration date. I therefore brought the Mamiya RZ67 Pro II out, found some grey cloth in my wife's craft room, and created a small table-top setup for a couple of still life images.

The Mamiya RZ67 is a great camera for this type of photography: the bellows focusing mechanism allows for very fine-tuned focusing and the 110mm "standard" lens I used is very sharp and, with it being medium format, gives a very shallow depth of field. Combining this with the Ilford Pan F Plus black and white film created some quite nice still life images with great grey scales. Developing and scanning of the film was (as usual) done by TheFindlab in Utah.

Of course I wanted to show off some cameras, and the Ansco Shur Flash and the Graflex Century Graphic are amongst the nicest I have. Both are actually still in use; in fact, the images from last week's post were made with the Graflex. Don't these two make great models?

Dried palm leaves and seed pods we collected during our trips abroad made also good subjects for still life images with their nice structures .

And what do you think of these tiny reed baskets we purchased when we lived in South Africa? Aren't they just adorable?

But you don't have to go far from home to find objects that are interesting for still life photography: the pieces of wood below I found in our own back yard, and the shells we brought from that same trip that inspired last week's blog post about Ghost Hunting In Savannah.

I thought some kitchen utensils we use on a daily basis would also be great subjects. The garlic jar actually has quite some wabi sabi content.

Especially when they have shiny surfaces.