I often receive comments on my articles and videos from former photographers and photojournalists with praise for some of the cameras I review, especially with the Nikon F line. I recently received a comment from Ken Mierzwa on my Nikon F2 article, and he mentioned that he was a photojournalist in the 1970s. Personally, I love to hear the stories people relay of their experiences using these cameras, especially if it was back when they first came out on the market.
Now, I don’t normally do guest posts. That’s not what I made this website for, but once in a while I make an acceptation. I decided to ask Ken if he would share his experience and some photos with you all. He gives some great advice that I know I will be trying to implement into my photography.
The following text was written by him and all the photos belong to him. I hope you enjoy!
Old is New Again: More than 50 Years of Film Photography
By Ken Mierzwa
It was perhaps inevitable that I’d become interested in cameras. My dad had been a U.S. Army photographer in the early 1950s, lugging a 4×5 Speed Graphic and following generals and dignitaries around Europe. Later he worked as a commercial photographer, and by the time I was born he had opened a small graphic arts business. My mom was a fashion model, mostly working auto shows and other product events and some small venue runway work. She took me downtown to the agency with her sometimes.
My first recollection of taking photos was at age nine, although it may have been earlier than that. Soon my dad had set up a small darkroom and was teaching me to process film and make prints. That turned out to be both good and bad, as I’ll explain later. In any case I soon had enough basic skills to take my camera out in the real world.
Photojournalist
It was pretty easy to break into photojournalism back in the film days. Not everyone thought they were a photographer yet, relatively few had the necessary technical skills, and there was plenty of demand.
I sold my first photo in February 1971, at age 15. I still have the tear sheet: A boring image of a high school basketball player dribbling down court. I’d taken it with a Kodak Retina Reflex IV borrowed from my dad. The Retina Reflex IV was a mid 1960s design, with leaf-shutter Schneider lenses and an external selenium-cell light meter. They were elegant and solidly built but also overly complex and heavy. It’s a challenge to keep one running today because of a couple of design issues which limited long-term durability. It was also slow to use and with a dim viewfinder, far from ideal for shooting sports.
I’d walked into the high school newspaper office with a print of that photo, and they’d bought it on the spot and it ran in the next issue. A week later I was on the newspaper staff. It was a pretty sweet gig; I was paid by the print, and the school district bought my film and paper, and sometimes I even got out of classes.
Less than four months after selling that first print I’d made enough to buy a slightly used Nikkormat FTn with a 50mm f/2 lens. I considered saving a little longer and buying a Nikon F, which was pretty much the default for pro photojournalists at that time. But I didn’t need most of the pro features like interchangeable viewfinders, motor drive capability, removable backs, and more, and the Nikkormat cost less. It served me well for the next three years, and I put the savings into a wide angle and a telephoto lens.
About the same time the newspaper faculty advisor was promoted to be in charge of all publicity for the 4,000 student school. She took two of us with her, and I was one of them. At first I wasn’t sure why, because several staff photographers were at least as good and some were more experienced. Later I understood that she chose the two most reliable photographers, the two who always came through on deadline. Typically I’d get two or three assignments per day (new teacher portraits, student clubs, events, homecoming queen candidates, lots more) plus sports events over the weekend. By 9:00 am Monday morning I needed to have nine 5×7 prints of each assignment on the editor’s desk. I was usually trusted to select the best image for each assignment. Often I’d have multiple rolls of film to process after shooting a football game or other sports event on Saturday night, and then would spend til late at night Sunday printing. It wasn’t unusual to drop 90 prints off on Monday morning. As a result I was soon bulk loading from 100-foot rolls of film, usually one of Tri-X and one of Plus-X at a time, and ordering paper in 500-sheet boxes. Prints were shuffled like cards through the Dektol, rinse, and fixer trays, eight or nine sheets at a time.
It was mass production. I’d shoot an assignment til I was certain of having a good enough shot, and for the simpler assignments that was often just a handful of frames. After a little practice I needed to shoot even less. I made a few mistakes the first year or two, but tried to learn from them and never made the same mistake twice. Fortunately, most were not catastrophic. I learned to pause at the start of an assignment and triple check everything. Film rewind knob turning, indicating film is advancing? Check. Film speed set properly? Check. Think about the light for a second, then check exposure. And so on. A few seconds of thought meant less risk of mistakes. Any special processing needs, say pull developing time a bit for contrasty light, mark it right on the film canister with a sharpie. The images didn’t need to be high art, they needed to be “good enough” and to convey the subject clearly. One print was held for the school paper, the other eight went to regional media chains which mostly had multiple weekly papers each. They then ran as halftones, losing some of whatever resolution and tonal gradation I’d kept in the prints. In any case my images were published all over the north and northwest suburbs of Chicago every week, and for an occasional newsworthy event in the big papers too. By age 16 I’d already been published in the Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times, and the now defunct Daily News.
The Nikkormat was a workhorse, and by the time I graduated it had lots of bare brass and plenty of small dings. Once someone knocked it off a table, and not long after that a strap broke and it smashed lens first into a paved parking lot. I had to hacksaw the skylight filter off, then pounded the front edge of the lens barrel back to round using a vice, some padding, a piece of soft wood and a hammer. It still worked, except for the meter which I had to have fixed; the lens even still threaded filters. We called the early Nikon SLR’s “hockey pucks” for good reason.
In 1974 I sold the Nikkormat to a guy who thought it looked cool because of the worn brassy body and all the dings. He paid almost what the camera had cost me three years earlier, even though it had over 200,000 frames through it by then. I put that money plus some earnings into a brand new Nikon F2 and then an FM, and a used but mint Leica IIIf. Those were used to shoot model composites through my college years, which was fun if demanding work which required learning how to use lights and getting really fussy about image quality. There’s also a trick to watching composition and timing and not getting distracted by the pretty young woman, it’s kind of a gestalt and almost like peripheral vision; seeing everything but not obsessing on any one thing. It turned out to be a useful skill years later for street photography. I also did some commercial work, mostly carefully lit macro images of electronics for corporate clients, and those were the best paying assignments ever.
From 1978-1983 I used those cameras to cover bands, both local unknowns and touring bands you’ve heard of, for one of the early Chicago punk ‘zines. Those are to this day my best known images. It was the first time I photographed from passion and not just for money and that made a huge difference.
The F2 was later traded for an F3, which I still have. Years later I’d shoot medium format for a few years as I moved away from pro photography and into a consulting career, while shooting for gallery exhibits and art publications to maintain a creative balance. Since 1999 I’ve been shooting almost exclusively Leica M, because the rangefinder is almost perfectly suited for my recent subject matter and workflow. But that’s another story.
Some Things Learned as a Photojournalist
If gear is going to be worked hard, then it’s worth spending a little extra for pro-level equipment. Not because it takes better pictures, because the person behind the the camera really does matter more than the camera. It’s because at that level of use/abuse, the better quality gear (metal frames, some level of weather sealing, etc) is much more likely to hold up. When working seriously it’s not practical to baby camera equipment. I saw many a cheap entry-level camera break in the hands of others, while my cameras just kept on going. I’ve had very few reliability issues over the years, and none that kept me from getting the shot. As high school kids most of us couldn’t yet afford the very top end (Kevin had a Nikon FTn, but Eric used a Canon Pellix and Doug had a Mamiyaflex TLR) but no one used entry level or off-brand gear.
Some of the stuff I learned from my dad was really helpful, for example I still use those printing skills. I also had to un-learn a bunch of bad habits. A lot of pro photographers, especially men, are little more than glorified technicians. They geek on gear, talk endless technique… and then produce predictable, lifeless images. I did too for those first three or four years, there’s nothing from that interval that I’m proud of today. It was “good enough” but that’s all, and I had to consciously do a complete re-set to get to the next level. Almost any camera can be made to work in a pinch. Technique can be taught and learned. Creativity, on the other hand, requires an open mind and some thought. The goal is to produce at least an occasional image which provokes emotion in the end viewer. Too many will never learn how to do that.
On the technical front, the goal for a black-and-white image is to have full tonal range, from almost black with just a bit of detail to almost white with just a bit of detail, and a full range of grays. There are exceptions, and it’s important to learn to recognize them. But look around the internet with a bit of visual literacy, and you’ll see too many images with black holes for shadows, or with muddy grays and no true black or white. Want to get really good at this? Understand the zone system, even though it’s not practical for most 35mm work just learning the basic principles will help a great deal. And remember (with black & white negative film) expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights. Finally, go to galleries and look at original prints by the great masters. Say what you will about Ansel Adams and the myth of pristine nature, but he made exquisite prints.
An old PJ trick was to carry two or three camera bodies, each with a different lens on it. That’s how we kept shooting when there wasn’t time to change rolls of film. That’s how they got so brassy so quickly, banging into each other. Today without the time pressure I use a variation: I keep two Leica M bodies loaded with film, one set up for sunny days and one set up for cloudy days (same kind of film but different EI, different development times). I rarely change lenses on those bodies, just grab the right setup for the day or both go in the Domke bag if it’s changing weather. If you can afford two bodies, it’s an option.
Most everything I shoot today is based around a concept or a theme, and that goes back to having specific assignments as a PJ. A theme ties the images together, relates them in some way, turns an image into a visual story. This can be an elaborate and abstract artistic vision that takes weeks or months to come together, or it can be really simple (a pro fashion photographer friend says most of us overthink this; he says a theme can be as simple as “red”). Understand this, and everything gets easier. Until then all is chaos.
Keep good records. Label negative files, especially. So many times I’ve pulled dates and places and names and technical info from decades-old images, and you won’t know how important it is until you can’t find something. If you photograph individual people, get signed releases and file them.
When new to film photography there’s a tendency to try a bunch of different things, and it’s probably a necessary learning stage. As a PJ I was forced to standardize, and I still keep things as simple as possible today. I shoot Leica M, with a 50mm lens, with Tri-X, and process in either Rodinal or HC-110 because I like one-shot developers diluted for each use from concentrate. Minimizing variables is a self-imposed limitation which forces one to engage with the image. Not close enough? Use your feet. And so on.
A lot has changed since my photojournalist years. Then, it was rare to see more than two or three pros and a couple of amateurs with cameras at an event. Today, everyone is a photographer. Back then making fair money as a photojournalist was easy, today it would likely be very difficult. While there are pro photographers shooting film today, and sometimes charging a premium for it, there are relatively few of them in this digital age. However for those wishing to go back to pre-visualization, to the anticipation of waiting to process images, to the more organic feel of film, to the process as an end in itself, some of the old lessons still apply.
It feels expensive to buy film today, but remember this: I’m still using a 1969 Leica M4 body with a 1990s lens, and they will probably outlive me. The body is worth more than I paid for it in 2006, as is the lens. How long will the latest bigger/faster/do everything digital body last, til the marketing folks say you need a newer, bigger, faster and more complex one with more megapixels that does even more things you hardly ever need? How quickly will it depreciate in value? There’s something to be said for putting smaller amounts of money into film and chemistry over time instead of much larger amounts every few years into constant equipment and software upgrades and bigger external storage.
The limitations of older and simpler can, if viewed the right way, become liberating and the source of new creativity.
Ken Mierzwa was a photojournalist from 1971 til 1983, first for the mainstream press and after 1978 for one of the early Chicago punk ‘zines. After a long break he returned to photography in 1997 and has since participated in over 35 gallery exhibits in Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and various smaller cities. His images have been published in the US, England, Canada, Germany, Australia, and Thailand. Today he uses mostly Leica M and still very much enjoys old film cameras.
Great story, Ken. My relationships with Nikons seem to parallel yours. Used a Nikkormat FTN for most of the 1970s. Traded that to acquire an F2A. Then traded that in in ’82 for a F3HP. Also bought an FM2 the following year. Still using the F3 and FM…they’ll probably outlive me!