What’s cool?

It was a much simpler time.

Yup. That’s a pony, my sister, and I on the driveway of our home, sometime around 1961. It was summer, I’m pretty sure.

Pretty funny now, but very cool when we were kids.

We lived on Fairwood Street. On the corner at Cedarwood. I was eight, maybe nine, my sister five or 6 years old.

A guy, his pony, and a big camera and tripod wandering the streets of suburbia, leaving behind bucket-loads of memories in his wake.

These pictures are precious to me.

Little did I know how obsessed with photography I’d be later in life.

Kings Hwy.

The sign.

I maaaaay have taken a picture or two of this sign.

It stood at Washington and El Camino in Santa Clara, not far from the SCU campus, on a corner lot filled with old, dilapidated bungalows.

I drove past this sign on my way to, and from, work, every weekday for 8 years.

Some shots were taken with film cameras, some with digital.

I recall riding my bike the nearly 2.5 mile trip from our home down El Camino one Saturday morning – with a bag of cameras – to shoot this awesome sign.

A relic of a bygone era.

Sadly, the sign is no longer standing.

I checked Google Maps Street View and all that remains is an empty lot with a tan colored slat/chainlink fence surrounding it.

I’d bet it’s likely condos or high-density housing fill the lot today.

I hope someone saved the sign.

A $40 experiment…

… continued.

Fall 2020 ‘Roid Week is October 18-23, a month and a half away.

It’s my fave photo-event and I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of awesome instant photography from its many participants. So much talent. Check out a Flickr Gallery of my faves from April…

I’ve made good progress with the LX100/SQ10 project.

To start the experiment, I printed a few black and white shots on regular Instax Square film, taken using the LX100 just to see if the idea was feasible.

It was. The three shots above were proof enough.

Over the last month and a half I’ve printed a handful of decent shots, scanned a few, and still have a coupla’ packs of Instax Black to use before ‘Roid Week gets here.

Every shot had differently lighting, so a consistent process was never really an option, but I still managed to get some satisfying results.

Plus, I haven’t wasted toooooo many shots.

It’s been interesting.

Highways 35/45, revisited.

A tale of two exposures.

Sometimes bad is good. Happy accidents. Kismet.

All that.

I brought a few cameras with me that morning. The location is an intersection of highways just north of Austin, TX called 35/45.

I set-up in a field right next to a car wash, and I was able to safely park in their lot. I asked if it was okay. No problem.

The structure is huge and this vantage point is quite something.

I used one of the wide-and-long shadows cast by the early morning sun to set up the tripod.

I used one of the wide-and-long shadows cast by the early morning sun to set up the tripod. Getting there early worked pretty well.

I had with me a pair of pinhole cameras that had some old film in ’em. My GX8. And I also brought along the Fujifilm Instax Mini 9.

I’ve posted before about the pinhole experience.

I made four instant shots in-between setting up and shooting with the pinholes.

I was quite happy with one particular instant and posted it on my film IG, @dogbonesoup

The other three didn’t seem to capture the story, how I feel, or what I liked about this location and vantage point.

This was back in July 2019. Over a year ago.

This past week I’ve looked back again at the instants from that morning – they’re in a stack of various sized instant shots on my desk I need to organize and store – and what caught my eye this time around was a different shot that was a little overexposed and somewhat blown out.

My position in relation to the sun had changed, and when I moved I lost the shade from the structure.

My position in relation to the sun had changed, and when I moved I lost the shade from the structure. That also means that a couple of these instants were overexposed because I didn’t change the settings on the camera accordingly.

Anyway, today I scanned the two that illustrated the point I’m trying make, here…

Looking at the two scans side-by-side, I am drawn to the dream-like feel of the overexposed shot.

The good exposure, while nicely composed, looks a little tame. Staid. A well documented structure. Very little emotion.

In contrast, the overexposed instant has so much more going for it. I holds a story. Feeling. Nostalgia. Mystery. A sense of wanderlust.

Emotion.

I love that this shot has a toy-camera vibe to it. I guess stepping out of that shadow proved to be a good thing.