Pass me my photographer's waistcoat

Laboured metaphors incoming....

I am a guitarist, but only in the sense that I have a guitar. Alright, two guitars. Yet, despite this, my ever-evolving masterpiece, 'While my Audience Gently Weeps', remains thankfully unrecorded.

But when it comes to cameras and lenses - especially for film use - I have no idea how many I have, across brands and formats. But Bronica, Canon, Minolta and Pentax all feature pretty heavily. And then there's film. My usual stocks are from Kentmere and Ilford.

Lenses make the situation even more complex. I use old lenses, especially the just post-war Russian Zeiss copies. One of my favourites, that I use on my Canon rangefinders, is an early 1954 Jupiter-8. The dates and lens construction suggests that it is one of the last lenses made with wartime Zeiss glass, but who knows.

At the other end of the scale I also use early digital era lenses that came in film era mounts - in my case Minolta/Sony A mount. For instance the later model 50mm F1.4 Sigma EX DG is an absolute favourite.

Usually I just load film into whatever I fancy, but sometimes, as with my allotments series shown here, I decided to shoot on largely vintage lenses and glass. Specifically I usually used the Jupiter 8 and 12 along with various OM Zuiko primes from the '70s and '80s.

To be honest, with most of the images from the set I have no idea what lens was used. Stop down a bit and other variants - the ambient light, developer choice etc - overcome any visible lens characteristics.

But that's not quite always the case, and just once in a while a lens makes a pictures that is better than I could ever have produced with a 'superior' piece of glass.

And I accept such good fortune gladly: it's a small gift from those capricious photographic gods, who usually prefer to spoil our film and break our shutters..