The Often Overlooked

One thing I love about photography and always have is finding the interesting in the ordinary. Bringing permanence on film to the often overlooked.

Gas station interior, U.S. Route 54, Vaughn, New Mexico, November 2004

Hasselblad 500C / Zeiss Planar 80mm/f2.8
Fuji Velvia 50 reversal film

Glorious Fujifilm Superia 200

Mission San Francisco de Asis (Mission Dolores)
San Francisco, California, October 2014

It is not news that digital has almost completely overtaken film in the past decade.  Film users have been marginalized since around 2003.

But that does not mean that film photography has remained at a standstill.  Fujifilm has continually been improving the quality of its products, even in their consumer lines.  I was on a shoot in the San Francisco Bay Area  this past fall, and ran out of Kodak Ektar 100 print film, so I bought a 4-pack of the only film the Safeway in Petaluma carried.

I popped it into my Hasselblad Xpan, and hoped for the best.  But little did I realize I would get the best.  The tonal range, color fidelity, and saturation easily match Fuji's NPS-160 professional film of just fifteen years ago.  A most pleasant surprise, and a big thanks to Fujifilm!

Bodega Head State Park

Bodega Head is part of the Sonoma Coast State Park in California. Sonoma Coast is made up of several beaches that are separated by rock bluffs and headlands. It spans 17 miles from Bodega Head to Vista Trail which is 4 miles north of Jenner. Everyone from beachcombers, picknickers, sunbathers and fisherman can access the beaches from over a dozen trail points along Highway 1.

This photo show Bodega Head, which is a rocky headland that forms the entrance into Bodega Harbor. Crabbing is very popular here and there are many hiking trails on the ocean side that allow access to small coves and scenic views. Many people go to the high cliffs to observe migrating gray whales.

Stats: Hasselblad Xpan / Hasselblad-Fujifilm 45mm/f4
Fuji Superia 200 print film

A Steam-tastic Invention

While visiting Vancouver, one must stop into Gastown and take a look at the steam-powered clock that has become a major tourist attraction, and rightly so. While boasting a vintage appeal, the clock was actually constructed in 1977 as a means to cover a steam grate and also prevent the homeless from sleeping on it in cold weather. At first the clock was wrought with malfunctions and had to be powered electronically, but once the local businesses saw how much revenue it bought in because of the tourists it brought, they grouped together to have the steam mechanism completely rebuilt.

Once completed, the new steam mechanism worked by a miniature steam engine that drives a chain lift. The chain lift then moves steel balls upwards where they are then transferred to a descending chain. The weight of these steel balls on the chain controls a conventional pendulum clock escapement that is geared to the hands on the four separate faces of the clock. The steam also powers a whistle, instead of chimes, that have become known as the Westminster "chime" to denote the time.

The long exposure of this photo and the black and white aspect give it a very "Sherlock Holmes" feel while the lights on the trees add a fairy tale-esque dimension that draw you in and pull your attention to the clock itself.  Think Scotland Yard meets Peter Pan.

This image was taken in March 2014 using a Hasselblad 500C with a Zeiss Planar 80mm/f 2.8. Exposure time was f/22 at 1 minute on Agfapan APX 25 Film.

Tomato Harvest In the San Joaquin Valley

Tomatoes and Vista of California's Coastal Mountains

Huron, California, July 2011

Dear readers, my apologies for being "gone" most of the summer.  If this were any normal blog, I'd be updating it via my Blackberry, Droid, or iPhone.  But, being the low-tech Luddite I am, I still do things the old-fashioned way -- on film.

I spent two weeks in the San Joaquin Valley of central California this summer, capturing the majestic vistas found there, farmers and farm laborers doing the backbreaking -- yet highly efficient -- work of putting food on America's and the world's dinner tables.  The panoramic vistas I snapped on the Hasselblad X-Pan, and the grit, grime, and guts of the people bringing the harvest to market I shot on my trusty Nikon FM-3A.  Instead of cards and memory sticks, I captured these images on Agfa's brilliant Optima II 100 film (see above) and Kodak Tri-X black and white 400 ASA.

It was worth the wait.

Help God Fight Evil

Political protester, Santa Fe, New Mexico, October 2004

This gentleman is obviously in a different religious camp than mine.  Obviously, he's not a Deist, though he's ostensibly in the same political party that I was back then (am Independent now, btw).  

Incidentally, God is not a Republican.  Or a Democrat.  I filed a FOIA request, and found that He is a registered member of the Symbionese Pan-African Green Natural Law Party, in Smuggler's Notch, Vermont.

Hasselblad Xpan

Santuario Chimayo, New Mexico, June 2006

This photograph was made on the Hasselblad Xpan, a camera that makes panoramic photographs on 35mm film.  While most 35mm panoramic cameras simply pare down the height of the negative (resulting in a compressed image size on the film), the genius of the Xpan is that it expands the width of the film, making for an image size of 24x65mm.  It thus  turns a 35mm camera into a veritable medium format camera, its frame the exact same size as Paramount's VistaVision widescreen format.  

Click on the photo to enlarge.