The other side

Saturday roadtrip to the greener side of the fence.

A tree with no name

Before me there must have been at least other admirers who must have seen this tree, standing at the corner where the road turns into a relatively flat run, after about two thousand feet climb in the last five miles or so. But I have done it many times and even filmed a timelapse sequence at this location many years ago.

It was early in the year, the ground was several inches below a blanket of hardened and yet spongy snow that had accumulated over months. The afternoon sun was low to the horizon and the light reflecting off the snow in the background shone through the branches of the tree hurting my eyes. It was a weekend day but we were far out of reach from the ugly west beyond the mountains. I stood there in absolute silence gazing at the silhouette of the tree and thought about how I could meter this scene right. I had Kodak Tri-X in my Leica M-A: a bare-bones camera that I love the most of all my shooting tools and an orange filter to cut through the blue sky.

It was a bright day: Sunny 16 rule tells me I should set 1/400 sec shutter speed to f/16 aperture, less two stops to compensate the orange filter. But it would have underexposed the tree, the details in the bark. I took a spot meter reading on the main trunk dead center and it read 1/60 seconds at f/16 aperture. Applying zone system math to it, I decided to put the 1/60th sec reading at Zone IV(average dark foliage) and fired the shutter set to 1/125 seconds.

Kodak Tri-X 400, Leica M-A, Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1, Tiffen Orange 21 filter

Bainbridge to Seattle

A rather warm but windy Spring day ferry ride from Bainbridge to Seattle, shot on Fujifilm X100VI.

Handheld long exposures

Early Spring evening with heavy storm clouds moving across the sky to the west barring any possibility of a grand sunset, and ruins of old boardwalk and pier in the foreground - I wished I had brought my tripod to this day. But wait... this camera I was carrying not only had a built in ND filter but also a rock solid IBIS allowing one to take longer than sub seconds exposures. As someone who grew up taking long exposure photographs at night in the wilderness, shooting handheld was quite the breakthrough in terms of experience.

Mr. Blue Sky

The winter does not give away without a fight. Early Spring storms bring an intriguing mix of storm and sunny weather in the Pacific Northwest, and promises of warmer days ahead.

Shoot digital like film

Note: This is not a Fujifilm X100VI review.

One of the big deal things in the world of digital photography is film recipes. I sense this came as a response to impracticality in the economics of analog photography and lack of modern analog cameras meeting the needs of many. If I were to tell you I was never interested in emulating the “film look” in my digital work I’d be lying. But until now I had not found a workable solution for it and the solution was not the physical tool but the powerful image editing capabilities that it offered.

My journey begun with the objective to emulate the film look, not just the general idea of how the photographic results should look but also attempt in creating photographs to look as if they were recorded on very specific films such as Kodak Portra or Fujifilm Velvia, or Fujifilm Acros. But I found film recipes more like the templates to start developing my own “film look” presets that need not adhere to making my images look like they were taken on film.

The rest is history… I am in love with this new craft.

City of dreams

A strategic guard post to the Puget Sound, an unfulfilled dream about becoming the biggest sea port on the Pacific coast of America.

When the sun comes out on a wet, overcast winter afternoon

The ground was still wet but I was sold on the signs of a break in the cloud cover, and so I headed towards the waterfront.

One dead leaf on a branch

A dead leaf from a tree in the maple family caught on a branch of a crab apple tree.

First day of February

A Saturday afternoon in Kodak TMax 400, shot with Mamiya 645E

Sea stack and sun flare

One would find amazing work in photography and paintings of sunset over Haystack Rock in Canon Beach, Oregon. But what stuck in my mind the most, even before visiting this place the first time two decades ago was monochrome photographs from the turn of the century I found while researching on the history. Now I know this is not the first time anyone has thought and executed this before but by fat the years I have visited and photographed these sea stacks I have never been satisfied with the results until now.

This is not an analog photography propaganda, I am just thrilled that I have created something special.

Twelve frames - Port Townsend

A winter weekend day trip to Port Townsend, Washington: Back to where I had shot some of the first rolls of film.

Kodak 400 TMax through my Leica M-A + Voigtlander Nokton 50/1 + Tiffen Orange 21 filter

In half frames

Seattle in half frames - shot on Kodak 400TX with a Pentax 17

An unusually foggy day

Burrowing through a sea of dense fog over snow covered dirt with visibility limited to a couple of tends of feet ahead of my truck I arrived at this intersection of farm roads on the US 2 plateau where a presumably abandoned house with a group of trees stood about a hundred feet from me. The fog was so thick I could not spot where the sky met the ground, I was determined to take this photograph.

On the way in it was raining and I was racing against time, for I have to cross the mountains before it gets too dark and icy. The fog was not going anywhere but was loosing light very quickly. So I took out my trusty digital camera and took two shots, and drove away soon after. The house faded away in the rearview mirror very quickly.

End of 2024

I am no stranger to using color filters when shooting black and white film but among all available options, orange was the spectrum I had not thought of picking up before. While I am not a fan of cooling/blue and green filters (because I like my sky and trees dark) I wasn’t sure if I’d love the deep contrast look from orange, since a yellow filter did pretty good job at it.

I did no research, just jumped the gun and bought an orange filter from Amazon, slapped it on to my Voigtlander 50 f/1 Nokton on my Leica M-A and packed this for our EoY trip to Vancouver Island. Over six days on the island shot a roll of Kodak 400 TMax, metering to ISO 320 and the “look” right off the shelf - came out very satisfying.

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.