California Views
The Pat Hathaway Photo Collection
Mr. Pat Hathaway, Photo Archivist
Historic Monterey, California • (831) 373-3811
Historic Monterey, California • (831) 373-3811
Posted by Pat Hathaway | July 23, 2026
The coffee is black, the coastal fog is aggressively thick this Thursday morning, and Big Boy Dan is back on my patio. If you thought the heartbreaking Ryan Fox upset at Royal Birkdale was going to keep Dan away from the sportsbooks for more than 48 hours, you severely underestimate the man’s absolute stubbornness.
The 154th Open Championship officially broke Dan’s “links logic.” He tore up his betting slips on Sunday, swore he was done with European weather variables, and is now fully pivoting back to domestic soil. The 3M Open teed off this morning at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minnesota, and Dan is convinced this is his financial redemption.
“It’s American turf, Pat. No pot bunkers, no driving ocean sleet. Just pure, predictable parkland golf,” he declared while inhaling a bear claw pastry.
He is currently hyper-analyzing the morning wave. You can track the real-time scoring over on the official PGA Tour leaderboard, but I’m perfectly happy sitting on the sidelines. I am keeping my Royal Birkdale bankroll locked up. TPC Twin Cities has more water hazards than any other course on the tour, and I have a feeling Dan’s “predictable” bets are going to end up at the bottom of a pond by Friday afternoon.
To avoid spending my entire Thursday listening to Dan complain about missed fairways, I decided to take the ATV up the coastal ridges. After my recent experiments with swirly vintage lenses and mirrorless focus peaking, I wanted to completely strip the process down to its bare, mechanical bones.
I left the Sony “plastic computer” in the safe. Instead, I lugged out my vintage Mamiya RB67. If you aren’t familiar with the RB67, it is an absolute beast of a medium format film camera. It weighs almost six pounds, contains zero electronics, requires no batteries, and is affectionately known by photographers as “the anvil.”
You don’t hold it to your eye; you look down into a waist-level viewfinder. The image is reversed horizontally, which completely scrambles your brain when you try to pan the camera. I loaded a roll of Kodak Portra 400, hiked the ATV up a dirt trail, and spent the morning shooting the fog rolling over the redwoods. The mechanical, bone-rattling *CLACK* of the RB67’s leaf shutter is the most satisfying sound in the history of photography.
Shooting 120 medium format film is an exercise in extreme patience. You only get 10 shots per roll. But when you finally develop the film and pull those massive 6×7 centimeter negatives out of the tank, it all makes sense. The sheer surface area of the negative captures a level of depth, dynamic range, and tonal transition that even the highest-resolution digital sensors struggle to emulate organically.
You can read an excellent deep dive into the magic of medium format film over at PetaPixel, but seeing the scans is believing. I spent Wednesday night scanning the massive negatives and pushing the high-resolution files straight into the California Views Gallery Hub. The detail in the redwood bark is staggering.
I sent the gallery link to Judge Roy Bacon. For the first time in a decade, he didn’t have a single critique.
“A waist-level viewfinder and a six-pound mechanical camera, Patrick. You have finally stopped playing video games and returned to the physical labor of capturing light. Outstanding.”
Don’t get used to it, Roy. My shoulder is killing me. The plastic computer is coming back out next week.
BigBoyDan: The water hazards are a non-issue, Pat. The fairways are wide. My guys are dialed in. Just wait until Sunday.
JudgeRoy: The RB67 separates the men from the boys, Patrick. Your redwood scans are the best work you’ve done all year. Leave the Sony in the safe permanently.
If you want to understand why a 50-year-old, fully mechanical camera that weighs as much as a cinderblock is still revered by landscape and portrait photographers today, check out this brilliant breakdown of the Mamiya RB67.