That being said, dealing with film is one of the most annoying things in the entire world. First of all, it costs a lot of money. If you can manage to find cheap C-41 film for $2 a roll, then develop just the negatives at a big-box retailer for another $2 a roll, you’ve already cost yourself $4 for anywhere from 24 to 36 exposures. Add on top of this the time you spend having to scan the negatives into a digital environment, and multiply this by however many rolls you plan to shoot, and you’ve just gained yourself a load of misery. To make matters worse, the film cameras I use are both unreliable. Sure, the results are often interesting and add a level of charm to the image, but I just wish my FED-3 at least had an exposure meter.

Still, I just can’t shake the desire to shoot on film. Last year, I would shoot on cheap black and white film from China and develop it myself in a daylight loading tank with my trusty bottle of Diafine. Sadly, I needed money at the time, and decided to sell off much of that equipment. No matter how hard I try though, I know that I’ll always come back to film, if only for a roll or two a couple times a year.

This is my submission for the obligatory fourth of July fireworks photo of the year. It was shot from my backyard, looking northwards from Poway, California. It was shot on a Pentax K2000 with a Promaster 70-300mm lens at 100mm, f/4.5, 15s shutter at ISO 100.

One of the first things any photography student learns is the important of having a broad tonal range in a photograph. A photograph that is either too “bright” or too “dark” is, theoretically speaking, not aesthetically pleasing. Fortunately, in photography, rules are meant to be broken. Sometimes having a vastly underexposed image can hide certain details not essential to the main thought in a photograph, or add an air of mystery to an otherwise ordinary scene. Most important of all, composing a shot with the intention of underexposing the final image creates a photo that’s out of the ordinary. In the photograph above, taken inside the run-down once-popular Saltair resort in Utah, the main visual element in the composition is the highlights across the handrailing. The staircase itself is merely an afterthought, and thus does not need to be emphasized to such a degree.

Another important reason to underexpose an image is to capture interesting or visually stunning light. The art of photography itself is the capturing of light, and a good photographer holds the ability to recognize worthwhile light in a scene. The photograph above was taken on the freeway near Pleasant Grove, Utah. For most, the dance between the mountains and the clouds wouldn’t seem special in any way. But at the time, I recognized that underlying layer of light that, in its present form, was simply too bright to allow for its subtle intricacies to make themselves known. Lowering the exposure on the photograph and increasing the contrast reveled what I saw in the moment which, for me, is the best possible outcome one can achieve in the post-production stage.

Shooting photos in the rain is fun. Shooting photos in the rain with a camera that’s not exactly waterproof? Not so much. The photograph above is one of many that was the end result of running to one of the gift shops in the Snowbird, Utah resort complex and buying a large $8 handkerchief to cover my camera with. The end result, in all its hazy and low-contrast glory, reminds me a bit of the scene from Paint Your Wagon with the song “They Call the Wind Mariah.” Sure, the photo is nothing special. But it certainly does communicate a sense of the mood of the situation.

A friend of mine, Twitter user @billcarroll, needs your help! A situation has come up, and he’s currently in the process of trying to sell “essentially anything and everything” he owns. If you want to help (and you should), check out his Twitter feed for his latest Craigslist listings. I’ve posted a few of the items below, but I suggest seeing if there’s anything else that might interest you!

Eddy Merckx Premium Sloping Single Speed Fixed Gear -
http://boulder.craigslist.org/spo/1245836036.html

M-Audio EX66 Powered Monitors -
http://boulder.craigslist.org/ele/1245471260.html

TUMI leather briefcase laptop case -
http://boulder.craigslist.org/sys/1246053718.html

I love trying to find bokeh in unusual circumstances. In case you don’t know, bokeh is (in simplest terms possible) the word used by photographers to describe the circles of light found in the out-of-focus backgrounds of images. Though it is often found in night photography, especially those which feature city lights or something of the sort, bokeh can also come about in daylight shots as well. In the photograph above, the sun’s positioning combined with a (relatively) dark background and an abundance of dewdrops on the pine needles create the magical light show in the frame. This photograph was captured while hiking in Snowbird, Utah.

The FED-2 Soviet Russian camera that I owned last year was a trusty beast. It never failed me, and the optical quality was superb. The FED-3 that I bought a few weeks back? Not so much, though this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. One of the first problems I’ve found with the FED-3 is that it experiences light leaks, and I’m not sure where they’re coming from. It doesn’t occur on all frames, and the ones that are affected range in severity from a slight blue haze over the image to a blown out mess. But that’s just part of the fun, right?

The first photograph above was taken at the outlet malls in Primm, Nevada, and the second one was taken at the Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah. Both were shot on the FED-3 with an Industar 61 L/D lens, and with cheap (and expired) Fuji 400 iso film. They are fairly grainy because of this fact, but I am still surprised at how well these shots turned out. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something personally appealing about the color tones found in these images that I just can’t replicate with digital.

I first spotted him in the San Diego airport while waiting for a flight. The reason I even noticed him in the first place was probably due to his crutches, the result of what appeared to be a broken foot. He seemed to be about average height, with a fairly athletic build (which probably coincided with his injury in some way). Armed with only a backpack, it was clear that he had difficulties maneuvering about the crowded terminal. He stood alone, somewhat uncomfortable with his apparent loneliness and his evident physical vulnerability. I seemed to lose sight of him, and forgot about him entirely until about an hour later when he boarded the same flight as me, after which he slipped my mind once more.

It was the third time I sighted him that I finally decided to pull out my camera and casually snap a couple of shots from afar. His circumstances intrigued me, and I found myself wondering what series of events brought him to Denver, Colorado. How did he break his foot? Why did he have a tattoo on his arm? Who was he on the phone with at the baggage claim? I’ll never know the answers to these questions, and to some degree, I would rather not know. Life is full of mysteries, both large and small. And the fact that this stranger remains a stranger is potentially more powerful than whatever the truth might be.

Many photographers pride themselves on confronting their subjects when photographing strangers. Good manners dictates that one should ask permission before taking a photo, especially while abroad. Though I wholeheartedly agree with this practice, I choose to photograph my subjects in the exact opposite manner. As a “theatre person,” I am a firm believer in the “fourth wall.” When I am behind a camera, I take upon myself the role of an observer looking in on the outside world. Confronting an individual breaks this fourth wall, and it also forces a subject to shift out of his/her natural character.

There are Flickr groups full of photographs of “100 strangers,” wherein photographers set out to photograph one hundred random strangers with their permission. While some of these sets might have one or two interesting shots, the truth is that the vast majority of these photos are simply posed and apprehensive smiling faces. Which is why I prefer anonymity when photographing people, shooting from as far away as possible and as discreetly as possible, as to not disrupt the natural flow of life. The wildlife photographer does not confront his/her subjects, and the photojournalist does not intervene and meddle with his/her surroundings. I fit somewhere in between.

And if you happen to be the man in the photographs above, I apologize for taking your picture in such a paparazzi-esque manner, and I hope your broken foot got better.

The first photographs from my recently-purchased FED-3 are in, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. Though my local Wal-Mart still hasn’t fixed their C-41 processing equipment, I actually shot a quick test roll with the camera right after I received it in the mail and prior to leaving on my trip. I didn’t have a film scanner at the time, but I knew that even the negatives would be a good indicator of whether or not the camera produced satisfactory results. And my assumptions are now confirmed a couple weeks later.

Not only that, but I was also able to test out the scanning power of my new film scanner. I knew the Epson V500 was supposed to be good, but I am honestly blown away by how much quality this monster of a scanner offers at such low a price. I even had to knock the optical scanning quality of my scans from 6400dpi to 3200dpi, which still results in photo resolutions around 4400 x 2740 for a 35mm negative. It never hurts to have options though, right?

For only having roughly a half hour on top of Hidden Peak in Snowbird, Utah, I managed to capture quite a few memorable shots. I’ve found myself slowly acquiring the skill to work under pressure, and in this setting, I often create my best work. The weather up at the top was somewhat cloudy, granting me some great opportunities to capture the gentle dance between the clouds and the rocky peaks across the way. The only quaff in this visually-pleasing weather occurred when it started to lightly snow. While my old camera had great weather sealing, the model I downgraded to (for a variety of reasons) lacks any sealing whatsoever. Fortunately, it survived.

The photograph above is a shot that, in all honesty, shouldn’t have worked. It was captured with a long zoom, facing downwards on the mountain. The framing isn’t special whatsoever, and in terms of a nature photograph, the composition itself isn’t what one usually sees. But where this shot shines is the lighting. Though it’s often hard to capture the light that one sees in person with a simple camera, stopping down the exposure in post-processing really brought out the beauty that I witnessed in person.

In other news, I have yet to get the rolls of film I took during this trip developed. I’ve been trying since I got back, but the local Wal-Mart (which is the only place nearby that offers negative-only C-41 developing at a decent price) is having difficulties with their processing equipment. I’ve spoken to a few people in the department, and apparently they’re waiting on a part to arrive. Till then, it’s just a waiting game. Luckily, my Epson V500 scanner was delivered today, and the (unrelated) negatives I’ve scanned in so far have turned out fantastic. I highly recommend it.