Thanksgiving week

Mostly far away from the chaos and traffic

Joshua Tree National Park, FujiColor 100 (Japan)

The Funeral

I cannot articulate in words the feeling that brewed inside me as I was setting up this shot. First, there was no sun until the last few seconds when it peeked through the clouds and lit up the trees in the background. Then it was a difficult composition with the “Wide” lens.

It appeared to me as if the trees were mourning the death of the fallen one.

36 documented photographs (Lomography 400 Color Negative)

Nikon FM2 | Lomography Color Negative ISO 400

#1

1/500 sec at f/8

#2

1/125 sec at f/2.8

#3

1/250 sec at f/8

#4

1/250 sec at f/8

#5

1/250 sec at f/8

#6

1/125 sec at f/8

#7

1/125 sec at f/8

#8

1/125 sec at f/8

#9

1/250 sec at f/8

#10

1/250 sec at f/8

#11

1/250 sec at f/8

#12

1/60 sec at f/8

#13

1/125 sec at f/8

#14

1/125 sec at f/8

#15

1/250 sec at f/8

#16

1/125 sec at f/4

#17

1/60 sec at f/4

#18

1/125 sec at f/4

#19

1/125 sec at f/8

#20

1/250 sec at f/8

#21

1/500 sec at f/8

#22

1/500 sec at f/8

#23

1/500 sec at f/8

#24

1/500 sec at f/8

#25

1/250 sec at f/8

#26

1/250 sec at f/8

#27

1/125 sec at f/8

#28

1/250 sec at f/8

#29

1/500 sec at f/8

#30

1/125 sec at f/4

#31

1/500 sec at f/8

#32

1/500 sec at f/8

#33

1/250 sec at f/4

#34

1/125 sec at f/4

#35

1/250 sec at f/1.8

#36

1/1000 sec at f/1.8

Port Townsend (Kentmere 400)

I took these photographs on the same day as my previous blog post with images taken with the Hasselblad X2D but took a while to send the roll to the lab. Got the negatives back today and scanned with V600.

Very happy with the deep contrast - this was the first time I used Kentmere 400 film stock.

Shot with Fuji GS645W

Old trees

Yoshino cherry trees (December, 2022)

The other side

I wanted to shoot neon signs on CineStill 800 but couldn’t really find much around Seattle. The desire faded over time, mostly because of the length of time I researched and then abandoned the project. While looking up interesting places around Seattle, noticed the south side of the city - potentially dangerous to wander late at night, present an array of very interesting old-city looks and “some” neon in it.

There was only one way to confirm or deny this…

I arranged for a scouting trip one of the December weekends and was thrilled to find amazing old buildings and history (I wasn’t aware until then UPS started here in Seattle). The area looked a lot less sketchy than it did ten years ago but, I was still hesitant to venture into the darkness, unarmed. But I knew I had to return at night - these scenes were too good to pass.

I teamed up with two friends (Kiran & Ashok) who were interested in shooting this part of town at night, and we drove over last Sunday evening. The weather was very cooperative: rain clouds were blown east and away from the city around 8 PM and we could even see a few stars along with the Big Dipper in the sky.

It was uncanny how calm, quiet the city was, considering it was a weekend night. Besides few “interesting” human beings (for lack of better definition) on the streets, the restaurants had diners but, from outside under a clear night sky there were not many sounds nor voices.

Once I acclimated to the surrounding I walked into a back alley to shoot the wet bricks catching the lights from the street on the other side.

There is nothing in this wide world that would ever make me comfortable photographing in the city at night. But I guess sometimes it is worth testing the limits, and these rare adventures always yield good photographs.

I’m happy.

Winter day in the sun (Seattle)

An unusually bright sunny day in the first Saturday of December, 2022 - I could have driven to the mountains away from the city. But instead took a short trip to the city.

Mt. Baker and the North Cascades (from the air)

It was the last day of sun in a span of a week that was ending with overcast weather and then rain in the following days. This crisp fall weather in the Pacific Northwest has always been my favorite time of the year to go shooting in the mountains for reasons including early golden hour and the wilderness generally lacking people.

Photographing the ground from airplanes, helicopters and even unmanned aircrafts over the past 15+ years has been not quite satisfactory for reasons such as (but not limited to) resolution, image quality (filming through perspex or glass windows) and image stabilization. Switching to a larger sensor addressed problems around resolution however, there were miles to go before it could be deemed satisfactory. Enter into the area the new Hasselblad X2D with a gargantuan 100 MP sensor and 7 stop IBIS: A camera worthy of arial photoshoot with the issues I mentioned in the first two sentences of this paragraph. There are two main benefits of shooting with this camera: Fist the obvious advantage of 7-stops IBIS that is key to appropriately eliminating vibrations while shooting from inside a small aircraft, and second but not least is the vast 100 megapixel canvas to crop the desired composition, and remove things such as the aircraft wings or sun glare on the perspex window from the shot.

Day after the storm

Beautiful winter day in the sun

Hidden creek

An unknown creek in the lower Cascades

The smallest, oldest big company

A slice of Seattle history

A familiar coast

Not far from home

Photographing Iceland in Winter - Part II

The colors from the 80's

It is still a bit cold for the animals in hibernation and the cold blooded crawlers to be out on these trails in Central Washington but not cold enough for the creeks and small lakes to be frozen. It almost feels like the end of winter but the lack of a lush green skin on the hills will remind one of the remaining days of winter with warmer days just around the corner.

It is the time of the year when nature in this region is engulfed in pastel colors.

Snow covered jetty

Hints of life beneath the snow and rocks, yellow ochre grass made me stop the car, get out and photograph this unknown, unnamed jetty in northwest Iceland.

Akranes

First inhabited by Irish settlers in the 9th century, this beautiful city seats north of Hvalfjörður. Skipped the snow clad city core to find green rocks on the west side by the ocean.

Photographing Iceland in Winter

The winterland will always be exotic to me, and winter being my favorite season it is no doubt I enjoy photographing sceneries like these more than anything else and any other season. I have been to Iceland many times in the past during winter but somehow managed to avoid winter storms until 2022. Call it a fortunate or unfortunate fate but this has got to be the most unique of all visits to Iceland, not only from photography PoV but also the experience of driving in blinding blizzard through mountain passes in search for clear skies, search for a hot meal at 3 am in the morning amidst a pandemic, to name a few.

From the moment we landed in Keflavik till now there has been very little “gaps” in between snowfall and strong wind. This was certainly not the weather I was hoping for when I booked the trip in Aug ‘21 but I was mentally prepared for it about two weeks before the trip after looking at extended weather forecast. We packed our best winter gear for the trip and it pay off well. Although it is not extremely cold (temperature in the 20s F) the feels like was in the teens and sometimes single digit Fahrenheit especially at night with high wind blowing fine snow dust across the plains. The weather is not deterring us at all from going out every day, and capture these amazing winter sceneries across the west side of the country (I plan to drive eastwards later in the week).

While most of the roads in Reykjavik’s vicinity are cleaned very frequently, the highways became frozen as we went farther from the city. The temperatures being way below freezing was a good thing: kept the roads dry and therefore, less slippery. I have a Honda CR-V with studded tires that has decent handling on the snow. In between shooting I kept the camera inside a woolen hat so that the battery does not drain quickly, kept my hands warm in the insulated pockets of my jacket because I do not own fitted gloves for my wide hands short fingers and at times used the car to shield the tripod from wind gusts.

Sunrise is around 9:30 am and sunset around 5 pm everyday. Waking up at 3 am due to jet lag actually helped me get to destinations before sunrise, ahead of tour buses arriving with people.

I would like to think this type of weather with more than a foot of snow around coastal Iceland is not common, since it is so close to the ocean, making this trip a special and unique experience.

Seconds to sunrise

Sun rays peeking through an expected gap in the clouds seconds before sunrise.

Frosted power lines

Besides the primary subject in this photograph, snow covered power lines illuminated by car headlights…

It was the weekend night out on the plains east of the Cascades, I was testing (new) Hasselblad’s widest lens for X system: the XCD 4/21. Arriving at this scene I realized very quickly it was not the best lens to frame the shot. There was only two ways to fill the view with the subject (the house): walk closer to it or use a less wide lens. A combination of sense of being respectful to private property and deep snow on the ground made me not choose the first option, and a desire to stick to the new lens made the second option less savory.

Stacks in tide

For a world less square [from XPAN brochure]