I’m a huge fan of large format photography and I bought my first large format camera (a 5×4 inch Wista) back in 1990. At the time I was an assistant in a commercial photography studio where a lot of the work we did was car advertising photography for Rover which was shot on a 10×8 inch camera. The photographer I worked for has since retired from commercial photography and he’s been kind enough to let me borrow the same 10×8 inch camera that he used for all of the advertising work. It’a a big camera (four times the size of my 5×4 camera) and it’s also quite heavy. Only recently have I been able to find a rucksack big enough to hold it and last weekend I was finally able to take it out on the streets of Oxford which was lots of fun. I was only able to take 4 sheets of film with me on my outing because the combined weight of the camera, rucksack, lens and tripod all added up to quite a hefty load to be walking for 45mins into town with. I made it there and back in one piece and I can’t wait to do it again.

[Tech info:] Wista 10×8 camera with 300mm/f5.6 lens. Adox 100 film processed in Rodinal (1:50 dilution).

Here's the camera with a smaller lens than the one I ended up taking with me.

The view that I see from underneath the dark cloth. Image by Paolo Polzella.

Negatives drying in the darkroom.

First shot, Turl Street, Oxford.

Street portrait, Turl Street. I made this shot in a hurry because this guy had to get back to work at the coffee shop down the road .

Morris dancers, Broad Street, Oxford. Unfortunately this one has a processing problem where I didn't add enough film developer to cover the sheet of film.