FILM IS DEAD. Time to rebuild.

Wow. Jeff Bridges called me today. Let's start with this. I'm going to hold up this picture. This was a FaceTime call I had earlier today. Look at this coat. How sick. Look. Are you kidding me? I woke up this morning and it was winter again. Yeah, we had summer and it was 4 days. So, I figured if I'm going to bust out a coat, I'm busting out the coat. The coat of coats. The coat of arms. The Technicolor Dream coat. Just call me Joseph. This is an emergency broadcast. I didn't know I was making this today, but I'm making it and I am posting it immediately. Today was wild. Today was one of the craziest days I've literally ever had. I've just been sitting here trying to think about how to put it into words. Truly magnificent. Like it Let's get into this. Today was one of the craziest days. One of those like career moment days for so many reasons. Okay, I don't know where to start. I printed off evidence to put into my journal because I knew either no one would believe me. Okay. Yeah, I know that is Jeff Bridges. The Jeff Bridges. We'll get to that in a minute. This is very important. This is a very important time in photography for so for many different reasons. Okay. And no matter what kind of photography that you do, that you enjoy, that you invest in, this applies to everybody. Okay. Yeah. Let's start here. This is my favorite camera of all time. My favorite camera that has ever been made. Period. Without a doubt. This camera has brought me more places, connected me with more people and opportunities, and yielded the best work that I feel I've ever done with a camera. I've always said it's amazing where photography can take you, but it's also amazing with whom it can connect you. And this camera has done that more than anything that I own. Super fast backstory. Okay, this is the Widelux. It's a panoramic film camera on a swing lens from 1958 from a company called Pannon. Pannon burnt down. They're gone. They don't make this anymore. If you want one, you got to go on eBay. If you buy one on eBay, roll the dice. You might get one that works, you might not. They break easy. They're temperamental. They're quirky. They've got attitude. They're weird to use. They're awkward to use. You have to hold it like this. There's a level on top. You could use a tripod. I don't. It's only got three shutter speeds. 15th, 125, 250, five aperture settings. That's it. Everything else is stripped away. This device is a storyteller. Okay. The camera pans from left to right and there's a small slit that exposes the light as it sweeps across the film negative. That's what gets you your image. Listen. Wind it back. That's a 15eenth of a second, right? You got to hold that. Do it with me. Ready? 1 2 3. Oh, it feels good. It's doable though. It's doable. You held your breath, didn't you? I know you did. Now you're laughing cuz you know that. I know. 250 is a much better speed. One of the quirks, got to change the shutter speed before you wind it back. Don't ask why. 1958. Much better. Film goes in the back. Looks wild. When you load it, it goes through about three channels. When you wind this thing back into the canister, it has, I am not exaggerating, it has drawn blood. Now, you might ask yourself, with all of those things, is it worth it? That seems like a lot of effort. Yes, because until you've seen frames from this camera, either on your computer screen, printed in real life, or looked through a book of these frames, you can't truly appreciate the magic behind it. It offers so much storytelling in every frame because you are seeing so much more of the frame. It's kind of hard to wrap your brain around, especially the first time using one and then getting those images back yourself. But it's gone. 1958, company burned to the ground. No blueprints, no schematics, no backups, no records. This thing is toast. eBay until now. A small team of ridiculously smart engineers from Germany got together with one epic storyteller, photographer, actor, and decided to recreate the widelux, build it from the ground up by reverse engineering the last available model created. So they took it apart, they stripped it down, they made prototypes. Now, there was wind of this years ago. Time goes on. This isn't exactly an overnight task. It takes a minute. This week, it was unveiled. The Wide Lux with an extra X is available for pre-order. They did it. They remade the greatest camera that has ever existed. It retains its full identity as a Widelux. It works the same. It cranks the same, but it's been refined. It's been tuned. The knobs are

bigger. It's easier to turn. It has a 2-year warranty. It is back in a modern-day age. what was risky in buying a camera that you didn't know would work or having any support for that camera in the future, that's been eliminated. It's a pretty amazing moment in photography when you can get people that are just so passionate about the art form that they resurrect a camera that doesn't exist anymore and spend years developing it to the point where it's usable, repeatable, marketable, 350 units to start. When they're gone, you got to wait for the next batch. I've shot my childhood rock heroes with this camera. my favorite actor with this camera. It's brought me to incredible events, life events, moments that are once in a-lifetime, the eclipse for Red Bull. It's introduced me to so many like-minded and passionate photographers around the world who share the same joy for this because they've experienced the magic. Now, this all started from a van ride back from a testing site for the Red Bull shoot in Texas years ago. Friend of mine, Alex, said to me, "Have you ever seen Jeff Bridges work? " And I remember thinking, "The actor Jeff Bridges? " He's like, "Yeah. " I'm like, "No. " Yeah. made a few photo books that are incredible and he's shot them on a camera called the Widelux. That's where the journey began. I found the books on eBay. I won't tell you how much I paid for them. Bought them. Mind blown. Found myself in New York weeks later with a friend Jordan that actually had a Wide Lux where I got to use it and hold it for the first time. That confirmed it on the way home. Bought one immediately. From there, hit the ground running. Found the other books on eBay. Don't ask how much I paid for them. Took that camera around the world. Learned it, mastered it, loved it. Jeff's been able to take this camera onto movie sets and show us a side of film making and behind the scenes that no one has experienced before. I'm sorry. Imagine standing over that scene. Oh, it looks good, guys. Got it. Unbelievable. I mean, like, have you shot Iron Man? It takes the busiest scenes even and pulls every ounce of story out of them. I wouldn't typically stop and think to take a photo in a mess of people that looks like this. But because the Vantage is so wide and there's so many people doing so many different tasks, it gives you so many things to look at in one frame, I find myself scanning the image over and over again and finding new things every time that I do. It's like, where's Waldo? It also gives you multiple vantage points in one photo. You could have a subject on the left side and be telling an entirely different story on the right. When I first realized that, that also blew my mind. A 15-second exposure allowing you to capture an expression twice on the same person in one frame. uh landscapes like you've never seen. So when the team behind Widelux reached out and asked if I wanted to write an article to support the launch that would go on the website, both the Widelux site and the Silver Green Classic site, you just say yes. That's a no. You don't have to ask twice. Be right back. So firstly, I'd love for you to go read the article. It's really special and it's one of those moments in my career that I'm extremely proud of and grateful to have. I haven't been asked to write articles many times, but for something like this, I one could not say no to, two, it's my absolute pleasure to do so. And that leads me to today when my phone rings. I'm at the studio just doing what I do another day, another random Thursday, getting videos ready for next week. Was literally starting to put together some notes for a reel I wanted to make about the relaunch of the Widelux. My phone rings and I answer that FaceTime call, which is rare for me because I don't typically answer FaceTime calls from people I don't know. I rarely like talking to people I do know. So, by chance, I answered it to the one and only Jeff Bridges. From hearing about his work in a van to finding his books on eBay to happening across the camera in New York to buying one, learning it, traveling the world using it, shooting rock stars, meeting celebrities, building my own photo book, hearing about the recreation of my favorite camera, being asked to write an article about the launch to a FaceTime call from Jeff Bridges himself. Feels like reaching the summit of a mountain I never thought I'd get to. We snapped a quick photo together and then we just chatted about photography and cameras and wide and he is as every bit as cool as I knew he would be. Just a guy who loves photography like you, like me, and like everybody else that watches these videos. A true passion and a true legend leaving a mark on yet another industry that he didn't need to do. But what a mark to leave, especially in a world where we hear things like film is dead. Well, folks, this is proof. It is very much not. So, so I've left links to the article in the description below. On that same site, you can pre-order the camera. There's 350 of them to start. All the extra details are there. And I can say this journey has been absolutely wild. Wow. Jeff Bridges called me today. Oh, hey Jeff. Where do you There's only one thing left to do, and that's just going to have to be shooting Jeff's portrait on the wide he helped bring back to life. That's putting the flag down. What a day. I can't wait to write. put this in my journal. I just can't. My dad would have loved this.