Mamiya RB-67 Pro-SD with 140mm lens

My Rosemary often told me that I was constantly thinking about the past. How was she to know that those memories included many that we had shared? Now with her gone that past paradoxically is my every day present.

There is no question that my success in photography had a lot to do with her backing and her control of our funds. When we arrived to Vancouver in 1975 money was not our forte.

It was around 1977 that I told her that to compete in the local magazine business I needed a “better” camera than my 35 mm workhorses.

In those years photographers would walk the Stanley Park paths with a Hasselblad hanging around their necks. Since this was pre-internet social media there is no way of knowing if they used them and if their photographs were good. I could not have possibly afforded this camera.

By 1977 I was getting lots of work from Vancouver Magazine through its art director Rick Staehling.

I told Rosemary that I was going to buy a camera called RB-67 Pro-S with a 65mm (equivalent to a 35 in the 35mm format). She looked at me and said, “If you need this camera, buy it.” I did and I when it arrived I showed it to Staehling. He was shocked by its size. About a month later he asked me if I could use it on an assignment.

It was then that both of us found out that its 6x7cm format (used 120 or twice as long 220 film) had film backs that could be turned to take vertical photographs or turned horizontal for what is now called landscape. The camera also had interchangeable backs which meant I could shoot negative (b+w) and colour negative or colour slide film. On horizontal mode the photograph fit perfectly on a two page format and in vertical the picture could appear full bleed (to all the edges) of a magazine page.

In those days art directors were extraordinarily busy. When photographers brought square Hasselblad photos art directors had to crop them to fit the magazine pages. Photographers hated when their photographs were cropped.

In short order this photographer, who could not have afforded that Hasselblad, was getting lots of work because of the format that sometimes was called “ideal format”. To repeat, in short order, I was getting a lot of work. Rosemary smiled.

Now photographers are much like fishermen. They sometimes talk of the photograph (fish) that got away. In my line of business when it began in the late 70s if you botched a job that would mean that you would never be called for another job. It was then that I met up with Patterson’s Law of Photography. It states “Murphy was an optimist.”

The camera you see here is one of three that I own. This one is the good one, the second one is the backup and the third was for parts. During a shoot of the portly Raymond Burr my 140mm (85 in 35mm format) failed when its main spring went. This meant that I had to use the 90mm (equivalent to a 50mm) which meant that if got closer I would have made him look bigger. After that job I bought a second 140 which was always in my camera case just in case. And of course, two flashmeters, batteries, extra film and if I needed on light I took two. Important, since my Mamiya was fully mechanical it was dependable.

What all the above means is that my little Kits office and studio could be seen as a miniature camera museum. All my cameras work. When I die I expect that anybody deciding what to do with the cameras will realize that they all are mechanically sound.

Finally I believe that some of those photographers walking in Stanley  Park with a Hasselblad hanging from their neck it was all for “Don’t I look good with this lovely camera?” One day when I was visiting the now gone consummate camera repairman, Horst Wenzel he showed me the interior of my Mamiya and that of Hasselblad. It was obvious that the inside of the Hasselblad was a work of art but Wenzel told me,”What is extraordinary is how, in spite of the fact you use your Mamiya to death it keeps working even though inside it is a mess.”

And of course, in my memory I thank Rosemary for having backed me up to buy that Mamiya – my King Arthur Sword Excalibur.