Vahe's Streets : Street Photography is Back -- A Visit to Jerome, Arizona

More than a year after many of my cameras stayed idle and waiting, life is getting back to the streets and I am ready to hang an old camera from my neck and walk these streets.

There are a few towns in Arizona where a photographer will, with little perseverance, find a frame to capture. Jerome is one of these towns and I have posted photos from this artsy and funky town before (https://liveingray.blogspot.com/2019/04/woman-at-window-in-jeroma-arizona.html). I took my 1970s Yashica 124 Twin Lens Reflex camera and headed to the mountains.

A few in Jerome stopped and asked about the camera. “Is it digital?” or “Can you still find film?” were the most common curiosity questions they asked. I told them the camera is a must to take photographs but that it does not take them by itself. Like a racquet does not play tennis. And that the old mechanical cameras require a true partnership with the photographer as they do not have any pre-programmed modes for different moments – one has to prepare focus, speed, aperture and framing before asking the camera to release the shutter. And then, you know if you took the photo or not after developing the negative in a darkroom and printing photos on paper under an enlarger. “It takes many hours of darkroom work to see if the shot I took came out ok “.

Most people had the look that said “Why would one do all that when you can use a fully programmed digital camera and see the pictures instantly on the LCD screen?”

… So, as I was hoping for a photo that reflects both Jerome and the times we are in, I saw a lovely woman looking at me. Well, I assume she was curious about the camera. I took a quick shot and walked toward her. We talked a bit about photography as she was intrigued by my anachronistic attitude to capturing moments on film. She told me she still has her first Brownie camera.

Then I saw the motorcycle with an old brick building in the background. I thought how the “iron horse” is a freedom machine allowing the rider to go wherever he wishes. It was a good symbolism for how people feel keen to do after a year of isolation, with or without an iron horse.

When I developed the negative strip, there were 5 frames I liked out of the total of 12 one gets on a 120mm film shot in a 6x6 medium format camera. The one of the lovely lady at the outset has all the flavor of a vintage photo taken through a 50 year old lens. She is slightly out of focus and that adds to the charm, I think.

The motorcycle shot is perfectly in focus while the bokeh of the photo and the brick building make it a bit surreal. I thought of a fishing boat photo in a harbor at sunset. I always think that these boats are dreaming of the open sea as this iron horse is dreaming of endless winding roads in the Arizona mountains.

A few words about my cameras:

For almost 50 years now I have been using mechanical cameras. A few of them have survived and still work. These are Kievs and FEDs from the Former Soviet Union days. Along the way I have collected more than 40 cameras, all considered classics although many of them like the Leica rangefinder cameras, the Rolleiflex TLRs and the Nikon F and F2 were workhorses for war and peace photographers.

Regarding TLR, which I especially like for street photography as looking down into a camera affects people much less than lifting a camera to your face and looking at them, my favorites are Minolta Autocord and Yashica. I do have a Rolleiflex from 1948 but I am not inclined to run miles of film pellicule through it.

Why? Not because it is not still perfectly capable of great results, but because I have duplicates of my other TLR cameras and have learned the essentials of camera repair over the years. So, out of my 40 some cameras, about 15 are “organ donors”!

My Yashicas are no exception. Here is my Yashica 124 which works like a 21 jewel Rockford Railroad pocket watch. I have now used it for over 30 and ran enough film strip through it to circumvent most Arizona mountains, and it feels like pulling a rabbit out of hat every time I use it. Or, as in this photo, a hare out of a horse’s hoof!

The Yashica 124 has two “donor” Yashicas – a Yashica-Mat from early 1960s and a Yashica 124 G from the 1980s. The Yashica-Mat is quite collectable because the earlier models were equipped with 75mm Lumaxar taking and viewing lenses believed to be manufactured in West Germany. All following models of Yashica TLR cameras have 80mm lenses made in Japan.