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.

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

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.

Home

There is no place like it

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.

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.

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.

East of the Cascades

Tulips

Every year I tell myself to not go back to the tulips farm and every year I go back.

Plants

I love photographing columns of sunlight percolating through thick vegetation and illuminate plants and their characteristics near ground. It reminds me of the very different tropical and sub-tropical forests in the place where I lived twenty years ago.

The first species in kingdom Plantae appeared about 1200 million years ago in water and complex plants appeared just 200 million years afterwards. First members of animal kingdom appeared after another 400 million years down the timeline.

Weekday in Marymoor

Tungsten experiments (feat. CineStill 800T)

Shooting with film at night has never been this much fun.

10 sec at f/5.6

13 sec at f/5.6

6 sec at f/5.6

3 sec at f/5.6

1/60 sec at f/1.8

1 sec at f/5.6

15 sec at f/8

20 sec at f/5.6

3 sec at f/5.6

Long exposures with CineStill 400D

Seattle and Port Townsend

Museum of Vancouver

Last night I was looking for a place with classic cars and neon signs to photograph in the CineStill 800T film stock, and came across Museum of Vancouver that has a classic car and a handful of neon signs. I wanted to spend only a few minutes here today but we ended up spending several hours going through the exhibits and educating ourselves with the rich history of this beautiful city on the west coast of Canada.

#36

1/1000 sec at f/1.8

The edge of Fidalgo island with a new analog camera

I have been shooting 120 film for a while but did not have a 135 film camera until now. Well, I started photography with a K1000 but that was long time ago - a period I would like to erase if I can.

To fill the 135 format gap I bought a Canon AE-1 Program and shot two rolls (few photographs here) with it. It’s a really nice camera that featured a “point and shoot” mode as well. Then I found a Nikon FM2N in excellent condition - I had to get it. Paired with a 50mm f/1.8 AIS pancake lens and a roll of Kodak Portra 400, drove to Washington Park in Anacortes to test it out.

Old trees

Yoshino cherry trees (December, 2022)