The view from my back garden. I took this photograph a couple of years ago using a Soviet Kiev 60 medium format camera. Although the camera is a basic, rather crude, type of camera, i’ve found that really enjoy using it. I think it’s the back to basics aproach to photography that the Kiev offers. No metering, no autofocus and no program modes – just a simple mechanical camera that’s devoid of technological distractions. You have total control over the image making process, and i like that feeling.

This winter, i’m going to start on a landscape project, and i’m seriously considering using the Kiev 60 as the camera for the project. I’ll be shooting using 50ASA film (Ilford Pan F probably) with the camera mounted on a tripod.  The choice of camera format will be important, so i may end up compromising and use two cameras. Maybe two separate projects running alongside each other might work better, one using the 6×6 Kiev and the other using the 6×6.45 Bronica ETRS.

The winter landscape projects will be released as a downloadable PDF book in late 2009/early 2010.