alone

This morning, I woke up to the sound of all sorts of birds calling and chirping from all directions. After a trip to the bathroom, I knew I had to wander. I quickly discovered I had the beach to myself, with no other humans, as it was, for 45 minutes. Living in Los Angeles in an apartment, alone time outside is extremely rare and thinking about it now, suffocating at times. It's nice to breathe every now and then.

Refugio State Beach, Goleta, CA

.....more to come.....

unreal women and towering buildings

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Walking in Los Angeles (part 1 of ~ a million!)

walking in Los Angeles.....

Los Angeles River

...this one makes me want to do a whole series of
similar pictures of different truck sides!

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Diana Downtown and around

Although the previous owner of my Diana+ said they had only shot 1 roll of film with it, I was eager to get shooting as soon as I had my hands on it's little plastic body. The very first roll I shot was a color roll given to me by the previous owner (I haven't figured out where to get those developed yet), but the very next one was black and white. After getting out of work early one day,  I stopped in downtown Los Angeles to wander around and shoot. At this point I had already realized what an awesome, every day travel companion this camera would become, perfect for photography during the random bits of free time that sometimes appear.

Los Angeles Grand Central Market

Angels Flight rail

Pueblo de Los Angeles

downtown randomness including a palm, puddle and some of the police station

Los Angeles Union Station

Los Angeles Union Station

Pinhole of not downtown Los Angeles

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Carlsbad Caverns - the second roll, first; yashica mat style

 

Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico (click to see larger versions!)

This is one of the black and white rolls I shot with the Yashica Mat 124G, an older Japanese Medium format camera. While scanning these, I was so excited about the results and to revisit the caverns! Over time I've become more fascinated, wondering when someone actually took a medium format camera into the caverns to shoot the beautiful, other worldly structures. I used 400 speed film and managed to do a decent job of stabilizing the camera by using handlebars, seating and breathing to get some pretty clear shots (i.e. no tripod.) Although I really think I should have been ok using this camera (I didn't use the lightmeter in the camera since I haven't been able to get the battery compartment open) while the bats came out at night, the rangers no longer allow cameras or electronics while the bats are flying, which was disappointing (I got some awesome shots of the bats last time I visited ~9 years ago!) I suppose film cameras are so rare now, especially without electronics, that the staff don't really consider it. Next time, I suppose....

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