After years of jealously watching Youtube videos, admiring the setup of others on the trail, and dreaming of wide open, expansive negatives, it finally happened. I was in the local camera store messing around with their used gear, not really intending to buy anything but just checking if anything was interesting, and I saw a massive green rectangle that caught my eye. It was labeled ‘Mamiya Standard 23’ and I instantly knew this strange, fully manual, medium format camera was going home with me. The camera was in rough shape and needed some work; any information was hard to find (the camera also went by the names Press and Universal, and changed significantly depending on the year made). After somewhat figuring out how the camera worked and discovering some surprises, like the retractable back allowing you to tilt the film at different angles, it was time to shoot. These are my first images, full of trial and error, mistakes loading and unloading the film, issues advancing the negatives, and also the inexplicable magic of the medium format image.