Startled

I waited very patiently for them to take to their wings, as I stared through the viewfinder of my (new) Nikon FM2. The wait was probably a minute but it felt longer.

They finally flew off…

CineStill 400D - Nova Era

Trying out new film stock: the CineStill 400D on Canon AE-1 Program.

Yellow streetcar (Seattle)

Issaquah historic downtown in CineStill 800T

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.

UW Seattle Campus

Shot on Kodak Ektar 100 with Kowa Six

Greenlake (Film/Analog)

Shot on Fujifilm 400H Professional

Americana

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.

Port Townsend

Fall colors were abundant event this time of the year in spite of multiple winter storms that have passed through this region. But more interesting than the fall colors was the Prussian Blue abundant on the walls and structures in this beautiful town in the Peninsula.

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.

Above the treeline

Tall peaks of the North Cascades

Front of the Camera

It doesn’t feel good not comfortable to be in front of the camera hence why I am a photographer.

Photograph by Emily:

Day after the storm

Beautiful winter day in the sun

Day Zero

These rocks might have lost the green skin of summer but the barnacles are determined to stand the augmenting cold weather.

Hasselblad X2D day zero

Smoke in the Mountains

The new “normal” late summer/early fall.

The Milky Way over Mt. Baker

Late summer is probably the best time to shoot astro - early nightfall, the temperatures are not below freezing and the skies are void of fall and winter clouds.

Smoky sunset in the woods

Dense forest fire smoke from Bolt Creek fire started pouring over Western Washington on September 10th, 2022 but the air quality wasn’t great for a while - possibly due to smoke traveling from other fires in the region. These photographs were taken on the 9th during an evening walk in the forest - I was not expecting to find smoke trapped in the trees and in the sky above, rendering fog-like scene especially at sunset.