“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
– Dorothea Lange

I chose the quote by Dorothea Lange, because I think it is especially true for photos taken with Mamiya 7. It is not a camera you reach for to capture a dynamic or action-packed scene. To shoot with the Mamiya 7 requires patience. As a result, there is a sense of stillness and serenity in the images created with it. If I had to pick a theme for this year’s series, it would be that of stillness and contemplation.  

It is my absolute pleasure to curate another gallery full of Mamiya 7/7ii photographers from around the world. When I started my Mamiya7ruinedeverything community several years ago, I really wanted to bring together everyone who, like me, loved this camera, but I never imagined the community would reach so many people. I am always happy to hear from new and more experienced photographers who are inspired by the images from our site and decide to get their own Mamiya 7.  

I hope you enjoy this year’s gallery. Thank you to all the photographers who submitted their work. Make sure to follow us at @Mamiya7ruinedeverything and if you are currently shooting this camera, tag your photos with #mamiya7ruinedeverything to get featured!

-Monika Murren, Co-curator of @Mamiya7ruinedeverything

20 MAMIYA 7 PHOTOGRAPHERS YOU NEED TO KNOW IN 2023!

Antoine Legond | Paris, France | @antoinelegond

Antoine is a photographer and an art director living in Paris, born in 1980. Above all, he loves colors and sometimes wishes he were a painter. He also plays music daily.

Jacob Dykes | Devon, United Kingdom | @jacob_dykes_

Jacob is a photographer based in Devon, United Kingdom. He searches for moments of stillness with his camera and tries to capture scenes that reflect his own experiences, exploring coastlines and natural habitats in his home country, finding peace, harmony and belonging in the British landscape. 

David Harlan | Roseville, CA | @davidmharlan

David is a photographer based in Roseville, California. He first began making photographs in the mid 1980s and developed a lifelong passion for photography. David works with both analog and digital cameras, but his favorite is his Mamiya 7ii, which he has primarily used for over 20 years.  

David has worked on several long-term projects including and immersion into the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, and currently, a project in the remote, high desert of Nevada. David’s work has been shown at Live Worms Gallery in San Francisco, Sparrow Gallery in Sacramento, Viewpoint Photographic Art Center in Sacramento, and featured on the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s blog.  

Sabah Nicolas | Philadelphia, PA | @sabah.shoots.film

Sabah is a self-taught photographer hailing from the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA. She picked up her first Mamiya 7 camera just shy of a year ago, and it has been her favorite travel companion since. Coming from a digital background, moving to film was something she wanted to do to better connect with the places she visits and the work she creates on a personal level. Shooting film has forced her to slow down and be more mindful of each image she captures. She is primarily drawn to shooting landscapes or anything found in nature. As long as she is outdoors with a camera in hand, everything is fair game. If there is a brilliant pop of color - you know she will be capturing it.

Hannah N. | Orange County, CA | @h4nnahfilms

Hannah is a film photographer from California. She began shooting film over the pandemic and has completely fallen in love with it. Inspired by watching her Dad photograph from a young age, her work encompasses snapshots of everyday life mixed with landscapes and colorful street photography. 

Shawn Moreton | Quebec, Canada | @shawnmoretonphotography

Shawn Moreton is a professional photographer and artist, living at the edge of a forest in Québec, near Ottawa, Canada. Father of two, partner of one, not in that order.

Kent Meister | NYC, NY | @kentmeister

Kent Meister is a commercial and editorial portrait photographer based in Brooklyn, NY. Alongside his commissioned work with actors, artists, and various corporate clients, Kent is focusing on a series of longer term projects set in the green spaces of Brooklyn to the plains of Oklahoma where he grew up. Most recently he was selected as a finalist for Photolucida's Critical Mass 2022 and his work has been exhibited at numerous galleries across the country. He is an alumnus of the University of Tulsa and the School of Visual Arts with a Masters in Digital Photography. All of Kent's personal work is shot on a variety of medium format film cameras, but the Mamiya 7 has fast become a staple in his bag.

Bev Hollis | Asheville, NC | @hikerbev

Bev Hollis is a self-taught photographer based in Asheville, NC. She began shooting film as a child in 1968 when her family moved from a Polish-German neighborhood of Chicago to a fishing camp in the Northern Wisconsin woodlands. Hollis credits this move, along with her mother handing her a Kodak Brownie, as the birth of her connection to nature through a viewfinder.

Hollis’ career work as a veterinarian, married with her love of photography, brought her to a wonderful 10-year run as one of the earlier pet photographers in the US. Her work has been featured in Modern Dog, Loudon Dog, Country Woman and PPA Magazine. She, along with another pet photographer, taught workshops throughout the US for 6 years and presented at the annual PPA conference. Though most of her “pet” work was digital, Hollis never stopped shooting film. She feels it best mirrors the simplicity of her landscapes. She finds the images produced with the Mamiya 7 best represents her vision of each landscape – and she loves big skies!

Robert Von Thaden | Orleans, MA | @robertvonthaden

Robert is a film photographer based in Southern California. Currently 26 years old, he has been creating photographs with medium format film for nearly a decade. He spent this past summer close to his home town, on the east coast. These images were made with his Mamiya 7 and a new appreciation for the landscapes that sparked his original love of photography.

Eric Smith | Lodi, CA | @erocksmith

Eric is a photographer from the Bay Area, California. He has been fascinated by the mix of culture and diverse, natural beauty of California from a young age. Though he has traveled all around the state, he feels like he has only scratched the surface of what this unique and beautiful place has to offer.  

He is currently working on two projects. One is a collection, an Ode to California, and the other is a book specifically about his time and travel, living in Lodi. He plans to release both books later this year. 

Mauro Curti | Madrid, Spain | maurocurti.com

Documentary photographer born in 1980 and growing up in a small village in the province of Cuneo, close to the Alps, in the north of Italy. After several jobs in different sectors, he took a course in photography before leaving Italy for a cognitive and research trip focused on the practice of the use of the photographic medium traveling around Central and South America over several years. He settled in Buenos Aires in 2015 where he deepened his photographic studies approaching analog photography. At the end of 2019 he returned to his hometown and started working on the long-time project Riturné, whereby he won a Scholarship for a Master in Documentary photography at the TAI University (URJC), in Madrid, where he currently lives.

Basia Serraty | NYC, NY | @b.ney.serraty

Basia was born in Poland in 1981. She has studied at Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland, Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie in Berlin and attended multiple workshops at International Center of Photography and Penumbra Foundation in New York. 

In her work she focuses on visual documentation of urban and natural landscapes using medium and large format analog cameras exploring various photographic techniques. 

She currently lives and works in New York. 

Fiona Bailey | London, UK | www.fionabailey.co.uk

Fiona Bailey is a photographer and freelance print producer living and working in London. Her photographic work focuses mainly on community and family, looking at issues which are personal to her. 

She is currently working on a project documenting her relationship with cold water swimming and her connection with the women that share this experience with her.

Noelle McCleaf | Venice, FL | noellemccleaf.com

Noelle McCleaf is an artist who explores themes of memory, relationship, and identity in the landscape of South Florida.

Born and raised in Virginia, Noelle received her BFA from the Ringling College of Art and Design and her MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, both with a concentration in Photography. Her work has been shown in national and international exhibitions, including at the Camden Image Gallery in London, The Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida, The Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado, and at the Slow Exposures photography festival in Zebulon, Georgia. Publications that have featured her work include Blink Magazine, Fraction Magazine, Southern Glossary, Accent Magazine, Feature Shoot, Lenscratch and Plates-to-Pixels.

She currently lives and works in Venice, Florida as an exhibiting artist and Full Time Faculty in Photography and Imaging at the Ringling College of Art and Design. 

Michelle Taylor | Grapevine, TX | michelleteresaphotography.com

Michelle is a photographer out of Grapevine, Texas (near Fort Worth). Originally from Chicago, she has a special place in her heart for that city. She currently lives in Grapevine Texas with her husband and two children. 

She started photography later in life, taking photography classes in her late 30's (close to 40!) and fell in love with the art of it. She is primarily a landscape, street and portrait photographer, but loves to capture and document all of the beautiful life around me. She especially enjoys capturing people and places just as they are, and without pretense. Growing up, she always felt that I had to be someone I wasn't, which is why she encourages her subjects to be and love who they are. She has always dreamed of owning a Mamiya 7ii and just recently have been able to purchase one and is absolutely in love with it.

Quenton Hamlin | Everywhere | @quentonhamlin

Quenton describes himself as a " Westcoast Ninja, East coast Pirate..." He has worked as a professional cinematographer and photographer for over 15 years in film and television. When not working he pursues his second passion, photographing and exploring abandoned locations across the world.

Adib Choudhury | London, UK | @adibchow

Adib is currently based in London and his work focusses on human rights, a particular emphasis on refugees. He lived in Lebanon working as a photojournalist for the Guardian, Al-Jazeera, NPR, Monocle and many others. His current project explores the journey of a Sufi saint in the 13th century as he embarked on a voyage that took him decades across the Middle East and South Asia. It’s a project about the tales we tell ourselves about what our destiny is. 

Milad Alami | Copenhagen, DK | @miladalami

Milad is a filmmaker and a photographer. His films have been selected to amongst others Directors Fortnight in Cannes, his first feature “The Charmer” competed in San Sebastian and have won several prizes His second feature “Opponent” will premiere at an international film festival in 2023. Photography has been a very important tool for understanding the themes, characters and environments that are portrayed in his work.

During the writing process he uses the camera as research, coming close to the subjects. Often taking environmental portraits, inspired by photographers such as Rineke Dijkstra. During the shooting of his films, he photographs the actors and the sets. They are later used when the films are launched. Currently he is working on his third feature and is photographing mothers who have lost their loved ones to gang violence in the Scandinavian countries.

Emily Najera | Reno, NV | emilynajera.com

Emily Najera is a visual storyteller based in Reno, Nevada. Her research as a photographer examines forms of architecture as vernacular artifacts. She often partners with historic preservationists and urban planners to document and archive the changing landscape of city neighborhoods. Her work has been published in The New York Times, ProPublica and NPR. To view Emily's recent projects, visit 

Kristopher Shinn | Seattle, WA | @kristophershinn

Kristopher Shinn is a photographer based in Seattle, WA. He loves photographing the ferries around the Seattle area with his Mamiya 7. 

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Monika Murren is a Polish born photographer based in the Hudson Valley, NY. She has spent a large part of her adult life in the New York and Seattle area and has relocated to the Hudson Valley in recent years. 

Her photographs express her passion for the intimate landscapes of Eastern Europe and the untouched beauty of America.  As a dedicated environmentalist, Monika’s work seeks to document the vanishing beauty of her surroundings. In doing so, she hopes to both inspire and bring attention to the beauty and fragility of these places.

She uses medium format film photography (Mamiya 7ii) and focuses the mood of landscapes in black and white and color. Her pieces range from topographical landscapes to works that bring the viewer into intimate contact with nature. Her work has been shown in galleries around the Hudson Valley.  

Connect with Monika on her Website and on Instagram!

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