Blog #11 - Silence, Slow Cameras, and the Jolly Green Giant

I keep finding myself circling back to Voigtländer. They have a pull I didn’t expect. The Brilliant TLR gave me results I liked even when I thought I’d messed up, and the Vito B turned out to be a pocketable little camera that I couldn’t help but enjoy. That was enough for me to add a Vita CLR to the shelf. It arrived with a viewfinder so fogged it may as well have been filled with smoke, the sort of thing that will need real work to disassemble, clean, and rebuild. I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to camera repair, but it is on the list. Half the fun with these old machines is not only shooting with them but figuring out how to keep them alive.

Voigtlander Brilliant TLR photo

That is what I enjoy about vintage cameras. They refuse to be hurried. You can’t spray ten frames a second and hope something sticks. You line it up, you focus as best you can, you take a breath, and you click once. Every frame matters because there are only so many. They belong to a slower rhythm, and stepping into that rhythm is half the point.

Silence is rare in my life. I am proud to be the primary parent in our house, while Emma is the breadwinner. It works for us, but it means that most days my head is never my own. Over the summer holidays Bow has been everywhere I’ve been, whether at home, at the office, or in the so-called home office. Fourteen hours a day of a four-year-old who never runs out of questions. “Why is the sky blue? Why do you have that camera? Why do you have another one? Why Daddy, why?” The soundtrack is non-stop, punctuated by snack requests, bursts of laughter, and the kind of logic that only makes sense in the world of a child.

She has reached the age where science fascinates her. She basically wants to be Sir Brian May (by her own admission and she has the hair for it), she wants to rock out with an (air) guitar whilst being an astrophysicist. She wants to know what clouds are made of, how cars stay on the road, why plants need water, and why her drawings never look the same as photographs. She peppers me with “why” until I have to admit I don’t know, which only encourages her to invent her own answers. There is an innocence to it that makes me laugh even when I am close to losing patience. She may not understand aperture or shutter speed, but she does love my photos. When I show her what I’ve been working on, she reacts in her own way. Sometimes it is “pretty,” sometimes “funny,” sometimes just “why did you take that?” She notices things I didn’t, which makes me realise that even at four years old she is already teaching me to see differently.

Emma knows what it all means too. She can tell when I’ve hit the wall, when the endless questions and the noise pile up, and she carves out time for me to step away with a camera. She understands that it is not just about the pictures. The photos matter, but they are also an excuse to reset. That space is as important as the results.

Not every camera session is peaceful. When I take the Sony A7III to shoot birds in flight or motorbikes on a track, there is no slowness in the moment. The shutter rattles, autofocus hunts, and I can fill a card in minutes. But I have grown to enjoy the later stage just as much as the action. Sitting quietly at a desk, scrolling through hundreds of frames, cutting them down until only a handful remain, feels like its own ritual. That editing process is slow and considered, even though the capture was fast. It balances out.

Sony A7iii, fast lens, fast bird.

Film takes the slowness even further. When I carried the Fujica ST901 to Portugal, it took me a week to finish one roll of 36 exposures. A week of winding on, pausing, deciding if it was worth pressing the shutter. I walked the streets with Emma and Bow, camera over my shoulder, knowing I could not waste frames. It meant the moments I did choose to photograph felt more anchored. A doorway with peeling paint. A shadow falling across tiled walls. A quick family frame on the beach. Nothing spectacular, but each one chosen with care. Shooting slowly in a new place changed how I experienced the trip. I was more attentive, more patient, more willing to let things happen.

Portuguese apartment block on the Fujica ST901

Whenever a new vintage camera comes through the door, I always put a roll through it straight away. That first roll is my test, my handshake. If the mechanics seem sound, it deserves a chance. I did this recently with the Voigtländer Vito B and came back with some surprisingly good frames. After that, I begin to use it more deliberately, to see how it renders light, how it handles shadows, how reliable the shutter feels. Each camera has a personality, and you only discover it by spending time together. The next step with the Vito B will be a more considered roll, a set of shots taken with intention rather than curiosity. That progression, from test to trust, is how I build relationships with these old machines.

JG, ironically on the Vito B 35mm

My good friend Jolly Green has been a strong voice for men’s mental health. He often reminds me that hobbies are good, but they are not the end of the story. Fishing, football, photography, whatever it is, these things give men a way in, but what matters is what happens next. Too often it is still taboo to say you are struggling. To admit “I’m not okay” feels harder than it should, and so silence fills the space instead. Jolly is blunt about it. He knows how many people we lose because those words are never spoken. The hobby opens the door, but stepping through means talking.

I have seen how difficult that can be. I've been picked up by my firends on multiple occasions over the years as I've struggled. I recently tried to encourage a close friend to pick up his camera again, thinking it might help him, but he never did. He is flaky, and I don’t blame him for it, but it made me realise how even the smallest step can feel too much when you are weighed down. You can’t force someone into a hobby, and you can’t force them into a conversation, but you can leave the door open. Sometimes that is the best you can do.

For me, cameras are both hobby and outlet. I cannot separate them. The Sony is a different beast to the Voigtländer, but I don’t rank one above the other. I like the rattle of a fast burst on the Sony just as much as I like the slow wind-on of a 70-year-old camera. Both give me something I need. Both pull me into focus in their own way. Waiting for film scans has the same grounding quality as sitting down with Lightroom and refining a digital set. They are different rhythms of the same song.

That is why the fogged-up CLR is more than just a broken camera. It is a project. It might take months before I work out how to rebuild it, and even then there is every chance I will break it completely. But that is not failure. It is something to work towards, a way of learning patience, a reminder that not everything is supposed to be quick. These projects give shape to time in a way that constant scrolling never can.

The rituals matter. Loading film, checking light, winding on, pressing the shutter. Sitting quietly at a desk with a memory card, trimming hundreds of frames to a handful. Putting a camera back on the shelf and deciding which one will come out next time. These small acts give order to days that might otherwise blur together.

When I talk to Jolly Green, he always comes back to the same truth: men need to be braver with words, not just with actions. Picking up a rod, a ball, or a camera is good, but telling someone you are struggling is better. I think about that often. Writing this blog is partly for myself, but also for anyone who reads it and recognises a piece of their own story. If it nudges someone to pick up a camera, that is good. If it nudges them to say something out loud that they have been holding in, that is better.

I don’t pretend to have it all worked out. I am learning as I go, one mistake at a time, with cameras that are older than my parents and gear that can shoot faster than I can think. Somewhere between the two is the space where I can breathe.

I don’t need silence all the time, but I need it sometimes. Photography gives me that. It slows me down, or it speeds me up and then slows me down later. It puts me in the moment, whether I am standing on a clifftop with a Voigtländer or sitting at my desk culling bird shots on a monitor. It gives me a frame to hold on to.

And if the next roll is a mess, if the focus is off or the negatives are scratched, there will always be another one after that.