Tokyo on film

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

The other side

Saturday roadtrip to the greener side of the fence.

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.

Thanksgiving week

Mostly far away from the chaos and traffic

Joshua Tree National Park, FujiColor 100 (Japan)

Fall colors of Denmark & South Sweden (Kodak E100)

The second roll of slide film I’ve ever shot and this time I added a Tiffen 812 warming filter.

Last day of the trip: Copenhagen

Walking around the city with my Leica loaded with a roll of Ilford FP4 Plus, when the jet lag has weaned off but I am ready to fly home weary of the week living out of a hotel room and without a car.

Fifteen years ago I’d have not guessed how American I am.

This time of the year Copenhagen is unobviously warmer than Seattle and pair that with ~10 miles of walk a day, couple of beers at lunch hour and a warm winter jacket could make one uncomfortably warm. Given that this is not the business tourist season in Scandinavia, I was on the hunt for opportunities to photograph daily life.

This was not the first time we were in Copenhagen and hopefully not the last time either. I love this city: if there is a place in the old world or east of the Atlantic that I feel at home, that would this region - the islands and landmass around the strait of Øresund.

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.

Tulips

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

The wetlands

Permanently flooded areas of land are found across the globe from the arctic to the tropical regions. While I have explored to great extent the swamps and bogs in the sun-tropical region, these wetlands at the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana reminded me of the similar terrain in Assam, in north east India where I spent the first twenty something years of my life.

Shot on Hasselblad X2D, during a conducted tour of a wetland near New Orleans earlier today.

Marseille in film

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.

I look forward to developing the film roll I shot today!

Day after the storm

Beautiful winter day in the sun

Photographing Iceland in Winter - Part II

Polar lights over Snæfellsnes

An unexpected clear weather in forecast made me decide to drive north and west of Reykjavik in the night of 12-Feb ‘22 to film the night sky but auroral activity forecast was not so promising. From the sunset around 5 pm local time (UTC) until about 10 pm there wasn’t a lot of polar lights activity in the northern sky besides moderate bands of green that flickered occasionally. Around midnight the intensity changed, with magenta and red light pillars appearing above and sometimes even towards the southern sky. The bright moon lit the foreground, creating favorable conditions for photographing the polar lights.

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.

Spotlight

In the scene I could barely notice the column of sunlight illuminating Maylor Pt. across the bay. As I hurried my way out from a late lunch/early dinner to the wharf looking for signs of sunset, this scene caught my eye…

The green glow in the sky

Not that long ago, I did not own an insulated jacket. Instead, I’d put on layers and then a rain coat before venturing out in the night during winter photoshoots. These photographs come from one of those trips., a rather family/personal trip where the main focus was to get away for a few days and drink every night till you’re stupid.

I was not expecting Northern Lights that night - it was the day we traveled into Iceland but we were not jet lagged probably due to high levels of adrenaline (and the anticipation of a weekend vacation ahead). We went out of the city only because it was the only night we did not have any other activity planned. It turned out to be one of the best nights to watch the green glow over us - considering winter weather and driving conditions at the time of the year.

June 2021 - Camping (Ohanapecosh CG)

The invisible fence

We were at the top of the canyon trail looking over a bend in Rio Grande separating Mexico from the US, waiting for the sunset when a horse rider appeared on the American side of the river slowly making his way to the trailhead below us.

It turned out he was an artist from the other side who had left his creations in several spots across the border, where visitors can buy with cash, and was making rounds to collect the money. As he passed us on the trail as he came up I waved at him and said “hi” with a smile and he smiled back and waved. I wanted to have a conversation with him if he was not in a hurry although he might not even speak English. I was curious and interested to know his daily life making rounds across the invisible fence making a living by selling creative artifacts to American tourists.

An unfinished story I would love to finish someday, perhaps.