Monday 3 September 2007

120 heaven

Menau Bridge, Bangor, North Wales

Today marks the 119th anniversary of the KODAK name and George Eastman's receipt of his roll film camera patent. Many roll film formats have come and gone but one remains - 120.

The 120 roll film format has been around since 1901 when it was introduced by Kodak for their Brownie No2 camera. Originally 120 film was intended for use in the amateur market but 135 ( 35mm) replaced it some years later. However the format remained a favourite of many pre-war photographers who wanted to take images with superior quality to that of 35mm. French photographer Robert Doisneau took many of his iconic images of Paris using a Rolleiflex TLR (twin lens reflex) roll film camera.

Well over a hundred years later, the film format is still popular with photographers who require quality, speed and portability. This image of the Menai bridge at Bangor, North Wales was taken using a Yashica 124 6x6 camera shooting onto 120 roll film.

I've always loved the square image format; my first camera (a Hanimex 88x) used 126 film that produced square images, so maybe that's why i find the format easy to work with. I'll be shooting a new locally based landscape project using 6x6 during 2008 - more news on that soon.

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