d200 – Front Porch Coffee

other, photography

Once Upon a Time in Guatemala

When I approach a large change in life I begin to wax nostalgic about good things from times long past. A big change is coming in a few months and this time around the subject of my nostalgia is: my central american year. For every person you see below, there are ten more who were in the story behind the picture, for every smile caught by camera there were twenty more when the camera was put away…

photography

Road trip: part II

part II:

Nikon F3; Zeiss Planar 50/1.4 and Dad’s Nikkor 28/3.5 (except for a few shots I took with an E series 50/1.8); no photoshop.

(part I is here: http://wp.me/p11VMI-j0)

Roll 1: Kodak Gold 100
I have previously dissed on Kodak film. It’s for chumps? Real camera nerds use Ilford for black and white, and pro-grade Fuji for color, right? Well, this roll saved the day. I had decided to bring one roll of film–and absentmindedly grabbed an already-exposed roll. Smooth move dave, smooth move. As the dice fell, a nearby gift/souvenir shop just happened to have film. What film was it? Kodak Gold 100. Kodak, I apologize; your film is everywhere, you rock.

Roll 2: Fuji Pro 160S
I like this film. Nothing really super crazy, just good color and grain.

Roll 3: Fuji Sensia 100
The jury didn’t even have to go out on this one: I <3 slide film. It is beautiful. If I had to take a camera, lens and two films for the rest of my life, it’d be the F3, a 35/1.4, and Sensia 200 (or maybe the Kodak slide film, I haven’t tried it yet) and Ilford HP5+. Done deal. Actually that doesn’t sound like a half bad plan anyways…

Roll 4: Fuji Superia 200 (another one of the old rolls of film from pops)
Nothing too crazy here, same reddish vintage-looking hues from the 7-year aged film. This roll was halfway used up when we left, so it had only a few trip shots worth posting here. Why call it roll 4? Because I didn’t realize until a moment ago that it was the first, not last, roll I took on the trip; water under the bridge.

Without further ado, here they are:

49740016-9 — roll 1 #10. Chips and salsa and hummus and apple pie and coffee, at the top of a 3.2 mile hike. All baked by scratch at the tea house up there, baking supplies helicoptered in once per season, fresh supplies hiked in weekly. The staff (a family) lives there five days per week. Yes, awesome.

49740009-6 — #15. This view is even better while having the aforementioned chips and salsa and hummus and pie and coffee.

49760024-11 — roll 2 #2. A train boiler blew back in the day, sending this piece (over 500 lbs) on it's way to where it sits now. The railroad tracks are 130 meters away. Egads.

49760021-8 — #5. Awesome man riding his bike through the rockies with a guitar.

46370007-7 — #7. This was taken with a prime lens, a 50 for that matter...this required me to get closer to a nasty spider than I like to get to spiders. Especially the nasty ones.

46370010-8 — #10 Up and to the right, you can see some of a glacier. Once and a while pieces would calve off and their thunder would roll down the valley. Awesome.

46370018-10 — #18. Pops sacking a few sweet macro shots. Mom is a total shutter bug, too. Go figure.

46370037-14 — #37. Slide film is awesome.

..and that’s it. It was a great* trip.

*”great” is overused. I mean great, actually great.

photography

Recently

Nikon D200, Zeiss Planar T 50/1.4

DSC_0076-1 — safer and more productive than texting whilst driving...

DSC_0077-2 — Starting fluid AND Old Spice Original Aftershave.

DSC_0063-9 — Shot at a stop, guy on the train that was going the opposite direction

DSC_0065-10 — the docks off in the distance

DSC_0046-8 — The classic blurred-departing-bus shot. Gotta have one every few albums, right?

DSC_0044-7 — If I wrote a letter to a world, to nicely detail how the whole of life works, you can bet your bottom dollar I would not want to see it sitting on bookshelves.

photography

Road trip: part I

Rocky Mountains in Canada, 9 days.
—

part I:
Nikon D200; Zeiss Planar 50/1.4 and Dad’s Nikkor 28/3.5. The 28 is pre-AI, which made for some trickiness, but with some creativity it’s nothing insurmountable. By miles and miles this takes the pie, cake and tart in the biggest-post-on-dave’s-blog competition, and will likely keep those respective desserts for a long time. No Photoshop.
—

part II:

Nikon F3; same two lenses (except for a few shots I took with an E series 50/1.8).

ETA: ~2 weeks. No Photoshop.
—

Thoughts:

Shooting scenery with a 75 is really interesting–I liked it, but the few times I used the Zeiss on my film camera, seeing that pretty 50mm perspective through the viewfinder was a breath of fresh air. Shooting so many photos of such variety as a road trip gives gave me lots to think about in the realm of lenses. I think a 18-70 (which, with sensor crop, is actually 27-105) would be an absolutely stellar all-rounder as long as it’s reasonably fast. The 18-200ish lenses are pretty cool, but that just seems like trying to do too much.

#115 (third memory card; the thumbs up is for Dave H.)

#293 (US-Canada border. Back in the good old US of A baby!)

#336 (out of order because it perfectly follows the previous shot. Wave on, Old Glory)

#574 (this one ought to be a bit bigger than the others I believe)

#665 Lest there be misunderstanding, the road trip wasn't taken in this truck. That said, it is very high up on my bucket list to take a road trip in an old vehicle that has lots and lots of character. I may after I finish work for the summer. Ride to Haida Gwaii from WA state on a thirty-year-old Suzuki? Yes, maybe.

It was a great trip; I do hope the 53 photos were enjoyable.

ideas, photography

Things

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be too; home is where the heart is.

Letting a thing be your treasure makes for a shabby home for the heart.

That’s something to not forget, especially when buying things.

Especially especially when buying things like a Nikon D200.

So..ah..on that note, I bought a Nikon D200.

Side note: it is unbelievably hard to not spend a lot of time looking at more stuff to buy right after buying a really, really really cool camera:

“Ah that lens isn’t all so expensive, considering I’ll be shooting for National Geographic as soon as they see some of my work and realize I’d be a positively stellar staff photographer. Heck, may as well spring for a Nikon 200mm/2.0 IS, one of their 17-35/2.8 deals and one or two of the Carl Zeiss primes, while I’m at it..just for the sake of being ready to travel to foreign exotic places and do crazy work at the moment that National Geographic calls. Oh gees, I hadn’t even thought about a tripod. Maybe I’ll look at those basalt fiber ones as soon as I finish picking out my flash setup…”