Trains and mid-century facades

A winter day trip to Seattle, captured on film.

Thanksgiving week

Mostly far away from the chaos and traffic

Joshua Tree National Park, FujiColor 100 (Japan)

A tale of 5 days: Shooting BW film in PNW fall weather

I have never documented the behind the scenes narrative of a full roll of film before so thought I’d give it a try…

November although started off dry has been really wet and stormy over the past two weeks. This is a story of five days spread across the weeks of stormy weather and my attempt at finding new things to shoot.

Day One: Six mile walk

Hugging on the north side of the lake, a ~6 miles walk under moving rain clouds. The first half of the walk was in dry weather but to my surprise, I took more keeper shots in the walk back when it had started raining and presented with limited opportunities to think/compose or even slow down.

Day Two: A coffee shop

Dropped my truck at the shop for oil change, had an hour to kill. We walked around the neighborhood and found a bullet-ridden RV parked in the ditch next to the arterial road where the truck shop is. Yes, I took 2-3 photographs of the seemingly abandoned RV but I didn’t like any of them. Then found a new coffee shop where we sat for the next hour in wait, this red British public call booth was placed outside its entrance.

Day Three: The Puget Sound

November sunsets in Western Washington are before 5 pm and add overcast weather to it, gets dark fairly quickly after 3 pm. This means one could take long exposures early on in the evening, therefore I took the opportunity to take a few photographs of the waves, with a tripod to allow longer exposures.

Day Four: Night Photography

Taking the long exposures fun further, ventured into Anacortes, Washington late night when the streets are free of cars and people.

Day Five: Whidbey Island

For the final images in the roll, we drove out to Whidbey Island. Although the day started with bitter cold and sideway blowing rain in the wind, the weather started to clear out near sunset. It was getting dark fast but I was able to shoot handheld for at least 30 minutes before having the need to pull out the tripod.

Killing the past and coming back to life.

The year was 2014, a cold late-November evening on the Atlantic coast of Sweden and a numbing fatigue from 30+ hours of wakefulness. As it grew dark rain turned to snow and for a brief moment the wind stopped. This was the opportunity to go for a stroll around the block where my hotel was, a quick walk around till the brain is convinced I need to lie down and perhaps try to sleep.

Gustav Adolfs torg, Helsingborg, Sweden - iPhone 6 Plus (2014)

Helsingborg, Sweden - iPhone 6 Plus (2014)

When I arrived in Helsingborg for the first time it was via a badly planned route that involved three fucking flights over 2.5 days with stops at JFK, Arlanda and Ängelholm. Suited the time well for it was the end of 2014 - the year that was transformative to my professional as well as personal life. Over the next four years I met some amazing people who not only made me feel at home in this part of the world but also provided reasons for me to want to visit Helsingborg so forth.

This is my home away from home.

Kärnan, Helsingborg, Sweden - CineStill 400D (2024)

View of Öresund from Kärnan, Helsingborg, Sweden - Kodak Portra 400 (2024)

Helsingborg, Sweden - Kodak Portra 400 (2024)

Helsingør across the sound in a different country is a twenty minute ferry ride away.

Helgingør, Denmark - CineStill 400D (2024)

Kronborg Castle, Helgingør, Denmark - Kodak Portia 400 (2024)

Lund in some ways reminds me of Redmond, Washington even more so geographically. Away from the sound, slightly colder drier climate and a mix crowd of young academia. The most striking difference is that there’s no university of fame in Redmond. I have memories of dining at a Texas-style barbecue restaurant in a barn somewhere near Lund many years ago but I had not explored this lovely university town in Skåne until now.

Lund, Sweden - Kodak Ektachrome E100 (2024)

Löderup, Sweden - Kodak Ektachrome E100 (2024)

Kullaberg, Sweden - Kodak Ektachrome E100 (2024)

Ales Stenar, Sweden - - Kodak Ektachrome E100 (2024)

Lastly Copenhagen - a place that needs no introduction, has been the place to rest after a day exploring around the region in trains and rental cars.

Nyhavn, Copenhagen, Denmark - Karmir 160 (2024)

Amalienborg, Copenhagen, Denmark - Ilford Delta 100 (2024)

South east view of Copenhagen city core from Rundetaarn - CineStill 400D (2024)

Tivoli, Copenhagen, Denmark - - Kodak Ektachrome E100 (2024)

It was about killing the past and coming back to life.

Home

There is no place like it

Fall colors of Denmark & South Sweden (Kodak E100)

The second roll of slide film I’ve ever shot and this time I added a Tiffen 812 warming filter.

Summer storms and wheat fields

I wanted to photograph the uncut wheat fields of Washington but it was already a bit late in the year. While most of the fields were already harvested a few remained untouched although they were far in between. It was that time of the year when the storm clouds make their way over the Cascades into the high plateau of Eastern Washington. I did not plan for being out there while it was stormy but it turned out to be a memorable day trip.

Last day of the trip: Copenhagen

Walking around the city with my Leica loaded with a roll of Ilford FP4 Plus, when the jet lag has weaned off but I am ready to fly home weary of the week living out of a hotel room and without a car.

Fifteen years ago I’d have not guessed how American I am.

This time of the year Copenhagen is unobviously warmer than Seattle and pair that with ~10 miles of walk a day, couple of beers at lunch hour and a warm winter jacket could make one uncomfortably warm. Given that this is not the business tourist season in Scandinavia, I was on the hunt for opportunities to photograph daily life.

This was not the first time we were in Copenhagen and hopefully not the last time either. I love this city: if there is a place in the old world or east of the Atlantic that I feel at home, that would this region - the islands and landmass around the strait of Øresund.

Long exposures on film

The Upper Cascades

A familiar route for a sunny Saturday roadtrip…

Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only real cure is to load up some film in your best camera and shoot like a bastard - a slightly modified quote but relevant to the mood in these photographs.

Eastern Washington in early Fall: From wet mountain slopes to arid canyons

Driving east on Interstate 90 past Snoqualmie Pass brings you to the “other side” of Washington I find relatively prettier than the rainforests and the evergreens to the west. Home is where the heart is but home - western Washington, being more accessible round the year presents less interesting and less exotic subjects to me for creating photographs. The Fall season is about to peak in Washington but the foliage was starting to turn yellow and orange around high elevations, so I embarked on a solo road trip last weekend to capture the early season on film as well as digital photographs.

The terrain changes very quickly after driving down the east slopes of the Cascades, from mountain side consisting of densely distributed streams and creeks flanked by perennial trees to gentle hills covered with sagebrush and farm animals. Signs of fall quickly changes to either late summer or early winter, for there is no distinct fall season in these parts.

Many hours fast forward - a sunset and a moonless night sky. The wind stopped briefly for the sunset before changing direction and get colder in absence of the sun.

This was not the first time I have been to these locations and likely not going to be my last trip. With every year adding more photographs of familiar locations the timeline starts to blur and makes it difficult to place a timestamp on a photograph. But there will always be a special place in my heart for these mountains and the wide open land beyond them, not too far from my home.

Homemade redscale film

In the realm of “alternate” and “lo-fi” analog photography, redscale refers to the technique of shooting color negative film upside down, resulting in a strong color-shift towards red due to shooting through the base of the film and the red sensitive layer (which is generally at the bottom when shooting emulsion-side up). The blue light exposes the layers containing cyan and magenta dyes, but the layer containing yellow dye is left unexposed due to the filter.

In 2024, Lomography is the only company that I know of is making pre-designated redscale film. However, I can’t seem to produce consistent and satisfying result out from using this film - both in 120 and 135 formats, and I blame it partly on the ISO rating of this film: Lomography “recommends” a range of ISO instead of one single rating. I know making redscale film was simply a matter of spooling an empty 135 cassette from a bulk or unexposed one revered (i.e. emulsion-side to the back) but I had not thought of making one until now.

The film I picked was CineStill 800T for two reasons:

I wanted to start with a high speed filming between CineStill 800T and Portra 800, I love the dynamic range and colors produced by the former.
Found this video where the author shared their findings, so I have proven results and I am not reinventing the wheel.

Loaded the roll into my trusty Nikon FM3a and began shooting around the “usual locations” around home. It took me about two weeks to finish taking all 36 (plus one) photographs and then developed & scanned at home with the same C-41 workflow I have for regular color negative film: CineStill CS-41 two bath (develop & blix) chemistry, then using a Sony a7RIII to digitize and finally Negative Lab Pro to convert.

About 30% of the photographs in the roll were affected by light leaks that I do not have conclusive explanation for. But almost all the photographs came out great - exposed properly (metered at ISO 640).

It was incredible to be able to shoot a redscale film handheld - I am very happy that I did this experiment!

Pentax 17: A new film camera in 2024

When Ricoh announced they are working on a new film camera we didn’t know if it is going to be a half frame shooter. Like many of you I assumed it will be a 35mm full frame camera but all of us were surprised when they did the first reveal. I was disappointed that it was going to be a half frame camera and yet I pre-ordered one…

The order was filled surprisingly quick! Unboxing a brand new film camera is something I had not experienced in my life until this point. The new cameras that I’ve owned and shot with in the late 90’s were either my parents’ or I bought them off the black market in India and came in bubble wraps or unmarked cardboard boxes just like when you buy used cameras from eBay today.

When I put in the first roll - a roll of Portra 400, I overshot the first frame counter (because the winder is so fucking small!) but it does not matter much because I had plenty of shots left to shoot. Zone focusing took a bit to get used to, the first 10-15 shots came out blurry but once I was in the “zone” it became a second nature.

It is a beautiful camera!

Although light, the camera feels premium in hand, well most of it besides the lens that feels like straight out of a Holga system. The shooting experience was fluid and pretty satisfying but it is not for Mrinabh. The things I didn’t like outweigh the things that I loved.

Things I loved about it:

Form factor
Ease of use: From loading film to shooting to rewinding the film.

Things I didn’t like about it:

Uneven frame spacing: I expect better from a 500 dollar half frame non-tomography camera
Not very “visible” frame-lines especially in bright outdoors
The format: Half frame is definitely not for me
Lack of manual controls

This was my first half-frame camera and I hope it will not be the last one.

Winthrop in the dead of the night

Later in the evening after the restaurants and shops have closed, the serene night scenery of a western themed town far east of the Cascade.

Joshua trees in golden hour

In the last week of July, one of the warmest weeks of 2023

Shot on Kodak Portra 400 with a Leica M-A (typ 127)

Whidbey Island

Mix of Portra 400 and Ektar 100 films, shot with Leica M-A.

A Sunday in La Conner

Colors of summer in the Pacific Northwest (in Kodak GC/Ultramax 400)

Bright lush chlorophyll-cladded leaves, dry weather and a diminished assault of pollen on one’s respiratory system indicates the advent of summer in the Pacific Northwest.

Marseille in February

One week on the Mediterranean coast of France - one of my favorite cities of Europe.

Photographing in Infrared

The Location

The Internet tells me of two subjects that shine the best in IR photography: Vegetation and clouds. Since it is rare to find clouds speckled sky in the Pacific Northwest (where it is either 100% overcast or clear skies) I chose to go with vegetation for this film roll. Took the first five photographs in Bellevue Botanical Garden, then the final shot in Brightwater Environmental Education and Community Center.

The Process

Not my first try at IR photography but this is the first time I ver shot with Rollei Infrared 400 film stock. The 720nm filter I have is rated at 5-stops therefore, box speed with it on for the film stock would be ISO 12.5, I decided to shoot at ISO 10 to give me some room in development. The Internet suggested I should pre-wash the roll, I noted the drained water from the pre-wash had a thick bluish black tint to it. Then I proceeded to develop using CineStill Df-96 monobath, scanned the negatives using an Epson V600 flatbed scanner.