There is a time for everything, the bible says. Arthritic joints and a stiff back serve as reminders, if any are necessary, that I can no longer hope to repeat many of the things that I could once do so easily and naturally. I think something similar has happened to my Rolleiflex photography. I have gained a lot of experience over the years, but I also seem to have lost a lot of spontaneity and creativity. I don't see as much of that now in my photographs. Experience and technical competence do not compensate for it entirely, but there might be little I can do about it. Creativity and spontaneity are arguably connected with age.
I believe the same decline was evident among famous Rolleiflex photographers of the past. The classic Rolleiflex photographers discussed in a separate post on this forum had in most cases completed their most creative and memorable work by their 30s, and I count Irving Penn, Fritz Henle, Diane Arbus, and Vivian Mayer among those cases. The same connection between age and creativity is also evident in most fields of artistic endeavour; one does not usually associate avant garde ideas and achievement with middle or old age.
If it is true that experience and creativity do not always go together in photography, and in fact are often opposed, then one might be tempted to speculate about Rollei Club members. Are most of us now past the age of doing anything creative in our Rolleiflex photography? Have we reached the point finally where our ambitions focus mainly on identifying precisely the Rolleflex models we own, or on hoping that Jan will soon get started on constructing his revolutionary 'data cemetery'?
I want to ask a question about flash synchronization, but shall leave it until a later time
Eddie Vaughan