Tokyo on film

Adventures on foot in a state of acute jet lag fueled exhaustion, shot on Leica M6 + 35mm Summilux-M

Portraits on Film

Seattle Film Club event.

Kentmere 200 (New film)

When I first heard about this film I was least excited, not just because ISO 200 is my least favorite film speed but also Kentmere line of films aren’t my go-to film when it comes to black & white photography. But after seeing Kyle’s review of this new film stock generated my interest in trying it out.

Very happy with the results!

Leica IIIF: Week One

A camera that reminds me of engineering tools from a time when the world that was not catered by China.

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.