Essay · May 19, 2026 · 6 min read
Ten years of working slowly with larger cameras, and what the extra weight has taught me about making pictures.
I bought my first medium format camera in 2016, second-hand and slightly too expensive. It was slow to focus, heavy to carry and unforgiving of mistakes. It changed how I work.
A bigger camera asks you to commit. You set up a tripod, you level it, you wait. That pause is where most of my best decisions happen, not in the moment of pressing the shutter.
The files are wonderful for printing, and that matters, because every series I make ends up on paper. But the real gift has been the pace. I make fewer pictures, and I care about each one more.
I still carry a small camera for travel days and for people. For landscapes, though, I cannot imagine going back. Ten years in, the weight feels less like a burden and more like a reminder to slow down.
Elena CrossLandscape and travel photographer, writing between trips from Edinburgh.
