2022 Road Trip Bronica Photography

While I was growing-up, I knew that an occasion was an exceptionally special one whenever my father broke out his Bronica, medium-format film camera. You never truly appreciated how horrible the pictures that you were taking on a regular basis–using that cheap 35mm camera or even worse a 110 film camera–really were, until you saw the results from a serious camera like that. At some point in time, my father gave me the camera, along with all of the accessories and a box of film.

My first attempt at using it resulted in the camera needing to be serviced when I tried to load the film backwards. After getting the camera back, I was scared to use it until my cross-country road trip in 2022. The rolls of film that I’d been gifted were all expired by 20 years, so I shot a couple test rolls just to see if they produced any kind of images. Upon seeing the results, my dad suggested that I simply add a time stop or open the aperture up a notch to allow the old film more exposure.

So, on April 20, 2022, I set-out across the country and proceeded to shoot a mind-boggling amount of digital photographs and video… so much material that it’s likely I’ll never see a lot of it. However, in special situations, I broke-out the Bronica and did my best to capture some special shots. See the results below.