27May

4×5 365 May 14th – 20th

May 14th – I had a great weekend with Zab being back in Los Angeles. Though, I’m biased and always love the time that we get to spend together. Over the weekend we tried to eat at least 1 taco at all the various taco places in Downtown. Though, we kind of failed later in the day as one of the places gave both of us an uneasy stomach. We have some ideas on the culprit, but I’m not going to name names. She was off getting ready for her flight while I was shooting her uniform, which she looks great in.

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May 15th – I’m all packed up as well and about to roll out for my work trip to Montreal, New Jersey, and New York. Is it obvious which shirts Zab helped me fold? They look a lot more pro than my own attempts.

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May 16th – Well.. there was going to be a black and white version of this same shot, but it got wrecked when security pulled the dark slide on that holder during a hand check. Fortunately I had shot the same scene on Ektar as well. This occurrence is what got me thinking more that maybe I need to use other cameras for this 365 and not just be limited to my 4×5.

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May 17th – No shots in New Jersey since it was a busy morning, I waited to get my daily shot once I was able to make it to Manhattan in the afternoon. I shot this from the hotel and was surprised I was able to get it without interference from the glass without a polarizing filter. I had forgotten mine at home.

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May 18th – Such a hot day in NYC already, it was around 97 and humid. I forgotten how tiring it can be trying to walk in that heat with the 4×5 and didn’t end up shooting anything outside and only shot the room once I came back exhausted. Dealing with the heat was another reason why I got to thinking perhaps I should adapt my camera choices to the situation for this project.

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May 19th – Finally home again after a long day and surprisingly few delays from JFK. Time for a beer and to kick back.

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May 20th – Normal days, getting caught up on laundry and cleaning now that I’m home.

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26May

July Travel Plans

I’ll be in the New England area in early July, primarily to shoot the Mt. Washington Hillclimb with my brother Cameron. We still have some spots open on our schedule, so if you have a project focused around product, architectural, or landscape work feel free to reach out to me and discuss setting something up. We may also plan an photo walk for film shooters, but I’ll post more on that later if we hammer out the details.

Looking forward to getting out and shooting a lot more of the green summer landscapes and nature though. This shot below is a long exposure on 4×5 Ektar that I shot from one of my favorite hill tops in April last year. I finally had enough 4×5 C41 shots to do a development run.

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23May

365 Struggles

After almost half a year of my 365 project I have been feeling more and more that’s it’s difficult for me to shoot new and interesting things with the 4×5 daily. While I really love the camera for landscapes, architecture, and some of the car exterior shots, it’s also slow and cumbersome to bring somewhere, setup, and shoot. That was very clearly illustrated to me again when I was on business travel in Montreal and New York City last week, both cities were already more hot and humid than I had anticipated and hauling around the gear to shoot with was very tiring especially after meetings. There also was an issue bringing my film holders loaded through security and getting a hand check, one of the airport security guards in Montreal pulled the dark slide on what was my black and white shot for the day even though I had them locked down.

Since I know I have to travel more for work again later in the year I’m thinking on how to avoid situations like this past week and also feel like I’m not getting stuck in a rut with what I shoot. I may be lifting my self limitation of sticking to the 4×5 and allowing myself to use any of my cameras. The upside is I’ll be far more adaptable to daily conditions and for travel I can choose lighter and faster gear to work with. The downside is that with photos being spread over more cameras updates could take longer as I’d have to wait until I have enough film of each type before it would make sense to mix new chemicals and develop. I don’t know, maybe I’m just too burnt out from last week and overthinking this all.