On 5 September 2018, I received an inquiry via my website contact page from Mark Stone-Brant:

Dear Rick

     I was wondering which famous pro photographers actually used the Yashica TLR, It does not matter which models they used for their work. It is difficult to actually see any on the web. I was wondering if you knew which famous photographers so I could see their examples of their photos. Perhaps they are mainly Japanese photographers?

     Please let me know

     Kind regards

Mark

What a great question. Until Mark’s inquiry, I’d not given the subject much thought. I know there’s a tremendous amateur interest in the Yashica Mat cameras. They’re affordable medium format cameras, though over the past few years I’ve seen prices creep up into the $500 range for units in mint condition.

  Mark also posed the question to a Yashica Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) enthusiast from Australia who offered the following analysis:

     Thank you. In terms of your question, there is no easy answer. There is a difference between professional photographers and famous photographers. The simple answer is that I don’t know of any famous professional photographers who used Yashica TLRs. There could have been but not to my limited knowledge.

 

Yashica’s philosophy was to build good quality TLRs at low prices and make money out of volume. The TLRs were aimed at mainly amateurs although the crank wind models often ended up being used by wedding photographers and similar, particularly when starting out. These are professionals by any description but are unlikely to be published photographers in the sense that you would find them in an art book of some form.

 

One such photographer is an Englishman by the name of Tony Baker who contacted me regarding some assistance with a book. He has written an autobiography, “It’s not Quite How I Pictured It”. At various times, he did very well. When he was starting out, he used a Yashica-Mat but moved on to other equipment when he became more successful.

 

And that’s the reality, the Yashicas are very capable of decent pictures but they are not particularly designed for the rigours of professional use. People used them for that purpose but not so much out of choice rather than a matter of necessity. Minolta Autocords are very similar in that regard.

 

Also, famous photographers rarely talk about their tools. They use whatever tool meets their needs or that they have at hand at the time and in reality, are capable of taking far better pictures than the rest of us regardless of the quality of the camera.

 

I know that your question was specifically regarding TLRs but Yashica’s first 35 mm SLR, the Pentamatic, is an example of a camera being used not for some outstanding quality but for a reason only known to the photographer. It was not a commercially successful SLR, even though it seems to be a nicely built camera with quality lens. There were three versions but it only lasted in production a couple of years. The biggest issue was a poor selection of lenses and only the normal lens featured an auto diaphragm. Not the sort of camera that “professionals” are drawn to but the famous Weegee, Arthur Fellig, names the Pentamatic as one of the cameras he liked using. Sorry, that’s the limit of my knowledge on this topic.

Tony Baker

After reading about Tony Baker I was curious to get my hands on a copy of his book, so I tracked him down online, which was no small feat given the number of photographers named Tony Baker I found. Here’s a link to his website:

Hear From Tony Himself (Updated 30 March 2022)

I corresponded with Tony via email to purchase his book and invited him to write his impressions of his experience with Yashica Mat cameras. Tony graciously accepted the invitation and submitted the following input:

Hi Rick,

 

Sorry, I have been away (much needed after the lockdowns), but have now managed to put a few words together about the Yashica Mat. I hope it’s suitable.

 

First, thanks again to our Australian friends for providing photographs of the Yashica Mat used in my book, and for writing the piece on Rick’s blog. By the time I produced the book, my own Yashicas were long gone.

 

For whatever reason, I had never photographed them.

 

I bought my first pro camera, a twin lens Yashica Mat, when I was at art school. It was late summer 1959.

 

Fellow students were getting their own cameras for our photography course, and I wanted to follow suit, but money was tight. One student had a brand new Asahi Pentax SLR, one of the new wave of Japanese cameras that would come to dominate our world of photography. I would need to look for the best used camera I could find, preferably medium format.

 

I saw my Yashica Mat staring out at me from a photographer’s shop window in the centre of Coventry, near where I was born. I was fifteen years old and ready to buy with money I’d saved from a part-time venture. The photography shop was incredibly small, three customers would cause a crush. The shop owner took the second hand camera from the window display for me to check. There were no dents or scratches on the body or lenses and everything seemed to work, I placed Seventeen pounds onto the counter and the deal, which included a leather case, was done.  Seventeen pounds may seem very little today, but represented a factory worker’s weekly wage back then.

 

The camera proved a good buy and served me well throughout my art school days, which did not finish till I was eighteen. I was drawn to street photography and amassed quite a catalogue of shots. The aftermath of war was still very much in evidence and throughout the 60s I captured what are now my vintage shots, on the city streets of Coventry, across the Midlands and in Bristol. There was no master plan and the images were simply my reaction to life as it occured, shot on an art student’s whim and limited budget. Sadly many of these shots were lost in a business upset years later.

 

Back then I mainly used Ilford and Kodak roll films, including HP4, HP5 and Tri-X . I often photographed people in urban situations, but medium format cameras like the Yashica can be over-invasive, not allowing much spontaneity. So, to keep things candid, I would often use the camera turned round 90 degrees, to most people it would appear I was shooting something ahead of me, when in reality it was them I was photographing. I’m sure that was a trick widespread with users of twin lens reflex cameras. As times and attitudes have changed over the decades, the practice may not be so welcome today.

 

Throughout these years I was Epileptic but still managed to get several jobs in photography before, in my early twenties I decided to branch out on my own, partially to allow me to pace myself better and reduce the number of seizures. It was a daft decision that against the odds actually worked. I immediately bought a second Yashica Mat, these two cameras helped me through the early days in business before I was able to invest in other cameras,  Both my Yashica cameras stood the test of time, never letting me down.

 

Best regards,

Tony

So I put the question out to a wider audience: If anyone knows of a famous or influential photographer who preferred to use Yashica Mat cameras between 1957 – 1990, please share their name and any images you are aware of with me so I can post them on this blog.

Update – Friday – 5 February 2021

 

Jerome De Perlinghi

I received an email today from Serge Van de Voorde of Mechelen, Belgium:

I read the blog about the Yashica Mat and the question of which important, influential photographers choose this neat little gem as their tool. I know Jerome de Perlinghi used it at least for his series of portraits ( on Blues musicians ) but he probably used it for more than only that series. Check him out … beautiful work.

Thank you, Serge, for introducing me, and the visitors to this site, to Jerome’s work. His images are incredibly moving and powerful.

A short while later in the day I contacted Jerome and he confirmed:

Dear Rick,

     I thank you for your message.

     Yes, I have used the Yashica Mat 124 G for all my portraits, you saw these on my website and here is the link to my Instagram page.

The last 36 photos on Instagram are portraits: www.instagram.com/jdeperlinghi/

     Please share any link that you would like, I like the idea.

     This is a great camera, I have always cherished my Yashicas, I have three and two are still in perfect working order.

     I wish you the very best.

     Warm regards,

Jerome