Mono Bank

Banks of Mono Lake, shot with Yashica Mat 124g, September 2017.

A bit of flare

A few more from Yosemite shot with my Yashica Mat medium format. I kinda like how the lens flare from the sun adds some weird element to the photos because the light in these situations was somewhat otherworldly and weird, especially when combined with the smoke from the camps mixing in with the stark light/dark contrast with the sunlight and the trees.

Moments

Stream in Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, 2018

Expired Film Day Moments

A couple of photos that I actually shot on Expired Film Day back in March (I finished off this roll at Forest Lawn.) I managed to lose most of the photos I shot on Expired Film Day itself, but I still managed to have a small selection for the actual Expired Film Day Contest so I had a couple things to enter. I didn't win anything, but I'm glad I did it given all the problems I had along the way!

From Expired to Alive

Valley Verandas

NESFV CicLAvia, things!

As seems to be my pattern, another CicLAvia means some more photos from the archives of past CicLAvias! This set is also from the most recent CicLAvia in the NE San Fernando Valley. Looking forward to it this Sunday in the "SouthEast Cities" and another chance to explore new areas of Los Angeles!

All shot with my Yashica Mat 124 G w/ Kodak Ektar

Las hermosas lomas virgenes

I knew I wanted to go someplace special to shoot at least one roll from the Emulsive/PrintFile giveaway, so I held off for a little while since I knew it wasn't happening on expired film day itself. When the stars aligned, we ended up at Las Virgenes Canyon again, and more specificlly during sunset again. I shot the T-Max roll using my Yashica Mat 124-G & a tripod. I attempted to treat it as 64 ISO film since that's the lowest my Yashica Mat went, but let's also be honest and mentioned again that my light meter doesn't work... so it's all a bit of a guessing game anyway.

I wanted to wait to see how the previous roll I shot turned out and after some very expired looking results from the color expired film roll, I was somewhat hesitant to develop the roll of 20+ year old T-Max. I kept delaying the development, being productive and developing multiple other rolls  of film before sucking it up earlier this week.

As I sat in the dark bathroom fiddling with the film, my heart dropped as I tried to detach the roll of 120 film from the paper backing and the film RIPPED, which has never happened, but I also had never tried to develop 20+ year old film. The film was stiff and resistant to being flattened and kept curling and slipping out from under the clip of the spool. Sigh. Silent struggles in the dark and finally I got everything situated and developed it in 1:1 diluted Kodak D-67. I have to say, I was much happier with my result than I thought I would be. I'm still in the process of scanning, but here's a little taste....

Further Expired

So back in the beginning of March I received some expired film as part of a giveaway held by PrintFile and Emulsive. Both rolls expired in the early 1990's including 1 TMax and Ektachrome. I wasn't able to shoot it on Expired Film day, but I took out the Etkachrome in my Yashica Mat 124 G to the Glendale Forest Lawn Cemetery. I feel like I was setting myself up for this, but I guess between the lack of a working light meter and the expired film and the film being expired, it didn't turn out ideally, but you do what you can. I do kinda like the weird effect combined with the sculptures of people in the cemetery.

Follow at Forest Lawn Glendale

I'm super behind in getting some of my medium format film developed & scanned, but I'm getting there! I scanned an entire roll tonight! This photo is from a roll of expired (I think 2003?) Kodak Portra 400 film I got in the Emulsive Secret Santa Swap! I loaded it in my Yashica Mat camera for Expired Film Day on March 15, although I didn't get a chance to shoot many photos because of work on that day, blah, blah, I ended up shooting the rest of the roll when we went to Forest Lawn in Glendale the weekend afterward. Secret/not secret? The light meter in my Yashica Mat doesn't work and I just do a best guess on exposure settings. I was pretty happy with how these turned out given the parameters I was working with! This one in particular was a little bit of a challenge to shoot with the TLR for me just due to the angles and how the camera functions.

People of LA: CicLAvia NESFV

People of LA at CicLAvia NE San Fernando Valley on March 6, 2016
The celebrity, ex-drug addict & ex-criminal, normal families doing normal family stuff, the homeless, the artists and people of all sorts of ethnicities. People of LA.

Yashica Mat 2014-G & Kodak Ektar
Danny Trejo mural by Levi Pónce

Refugio 9/2015

Refugio State Beach, September 2015
Shot with Yashica Mat 124g. First photo of the roll = incomplete photo

CicLAvia #16 NE SFV - friends

CicLAvia -  NE SFV, 3/6/16
Yashica Mat 124-g & kodak ektar

CicLAvia 3/6/16: Growth

A quick photo from one of my rolls of film from the Yashica Mat at CicLAvia in the NE SFV last weekend! I'm really excited about how some of my photos turned out! Of course with that comes a bunch of scanning...

Growth @ CicLAvia, Pacoima, CA, 3/6/2016
shot with Yashica-Mat on Kodak Ektar (I love this film/combo)

White Sands waves

White Sands National Monument, NM, September 2012
Shot w/ Yashica Mat 124G w/ Kodak Ektar 100

Carlsbad Caverns abstraction

I was just looking through some photos, trying to find some stuff to submit and I came across this roll from Carlsbad Caverns that I never posted (which is better than the ones that I've yet to scan or the ones I haven't developed yet!) This was a pretty awesome roll because this was it was only the second roll of medium format film that I ever shot. This trip to Carlsbad Caverns and New Mexico in general is the one that got me back into film photography after a bit of a hiatus and got me to try out medium format for the first time! And now... now it's not uncommon for me to have 2 or 3 or more different film cameras on me at one time.

Anyway, I really love the photos of Carlsbad Caverns in black and white...... 

Carlsbad Caverns, NM, September 2012

Pasadena CicLAvia 5/31/2015, Colorado Old Town

Partially in celebration of the upcoming CicLAvia next week and partially because I finally got them developed (the delay of film! Sometimes it's like leaving little presents around for your future self.) here's a  few more photos from the Pasadena CicLAvia at the end of May as shot with my medium format TLR Yashica Mat. These were all shot along Colorado in the Old Town area.

Pasadena CicLAvia 5/31/2015, ppl 2

With the Culver City to Venice CicLAvia tomorrow, I thought I would post a few more photos from the last CicLAvia at the end of May in Pasadena!

All of these were shot with a Yashica Mat on Lomography 100 ISO film. I love using this camera for CicLAvias, but, it does help when I have a spot to drop off the camera as I did in the last 2 (near my home & near my work.) so we shall see. At minimum I'm planning on my Holga 135 and a new (to me) fisheye 2 lomography camera that I picked up last weekend!

I can't find the info she gave me with her name (gah!), but this woman was dressed in green to raise awareness for mental health problems!

People of Ciclavia in Pasadena, Part 1, May 31 2015

More people of Ciclavia, this time in Pasadena! All were shot with my Yashica Mat 124G on Lomography 100 speed 120 film.

 

I love how happy people are at Ciclavia! And how many groups of people seem to be enjoying themselves in general while visiting new places and getting exercise....just by closing down a relatively small number of miles of streets! How does this not happen weekly or monthly yet?!?!!

Thank you to everyone who let me shoot your photo!

Ciclavia Pasadena - Black and White Memories

bass player from viceversa

All shot with a Yashica-Mat 124g w/ Arista Black & White 400 film during the Pasadena Ciclavia, May 31, 2015.

Previous Pasadena Ciclavia photos
Previous Ciclavia Photos

St Charles Borromeo Festival, 2015, part 1

One of the things I've enjoyed taking photos of over the years I've lived in the Studio City/North Hollywood area is the St. Charles Borromeo Festival that usually happens at the end of April. With the carnival attractions and colors, I've found it new and interesting to go back year after year. This year I had an expired roll of Kodak Ektar 100 and decided to bike over there and shoot it in my Yashica Mat at the Festival.

 

People of Ciclavia in the Valley

The Ciclavia this past Sunday March 22 was an ultra special Ciclavia for me. Not only was it the first Ciclavia in the San Fernando Valley, but it was literally right outside my apartment building door!!!!!! I was a little unsure about it based on the kinds of pre-event feedback I was getting from people throughout the community, but the turnout seemed great and everyone I interacted with seemed like they were having fun. I was doing things pretty much from 8:30am-4:20pm with little breaks in my apartment throughout the day. I ended up riding (nearly) the whole route 2 times, ate my breakfast while wandering around the Ciclavia route, had some nice conversations with a friend, handed out some decorations for bikes & met some nice people, and shot photos. Such an awesome, perfect day, for me at least.

This first batch of photos are actually the last I shot of the day, but I was super excited to post them. Towards the end of the event I wandered around the Universal hub and just asked random people to shoot their photos in addition to my normal thing. This is a huge, difficult thing for me, but everyone I spoke to with was very kind and allowed me to shoot their photos with my Yashica Mat (which was catching a lot of eyes throughout the event... from time to time I'd hear someone yell out "Medium format!" and "whoa look at that camera!") Thank you to everyone that stopped and let me shoot your photos and for being patient with me with my old manual camera!

although this isn't the best photo (old camera with manual everything), this guy first caught my eye because he was biking with crutches, then I realized he didn't have a right foot! How awesome that a bike lets him still get around!

I loved this woman's dress and her smile that matched her bike!!!!

the Ciclavia game I play in my mind of "spot the Burner bikes"!

...and of course, there are many more photos to come! Thanks to Rocket Photo Lab in Studio City for getting my photos developed so quickly!