Why I Bought the Ricoh GRiii | Three Months On

Scroll down past all the words to see the full photoset: 3 Months with the Ricoh GRiii

Film vs. digital: a real life story

Over the last ten years or so, I’ve gotten into the habit of visiting NYC in early October (pandemics notwithstanding), and it’s one of my favorite places to shoot photos in the streets.

During my 2022 NYC trip, I carried two cameras with me everywhere I went for six days — a digital Fuji X-Pro3, and a compact Rollei 35S point-and-shoot film camera. But the experience of juggling film and digital didn’t result in the best of outcomes.

When I’m in New York, I walk almost everywhere so I can shoot as much as possible, taking my time, slowing down and periodically posting up in spots that have good light and lots of action. You know, “street photography.”

On this trip, I switched between cameras as often as it occurred to me, at the time it felt like an even spilt between the two. I came back with over 800 digital photos and approximately 150 film photos, and the amount of “keepers” wasn’t what I’d wanted out of it all (and I try to maintain pretty low expectations and high standards when it comes the keeper ratio).

Editing that batch of NYC photos made it painfully clear to me that shooting digital and shooting film are two different disciplines, and trying to do both at the same time generally means that I’m not focused on the essence of the pursuit — the photography fundamentals required for consistent results, especially in shooting film.

For me, working with a digital camera encourages volume — just shoot as much as I can and sort it all out in Lightroom later. The only limits on the amount of photos I can take are how engaged my vision is, how much ground I’m willing to cover, and the size of the memory cards in the camera.

I try to not let the camera do too much of the work, but my photographic mindset is looser with a digital camera in-hand. I can think all I want about taking the time to line up shots, and adjust as many settings to manual as I can handle, but once I’m out in the streets and I can take as many shots as I want in order to get just the right one out of almost any situation, that’s exactly what I’ll do.

And that’s fine. I love the seemingly endless run-and-gun approach of shooting digital, and the X-Pro3 is an excellent camera — my favorite digital rangefinder style — both in terms of user experience and quality of output.

But with an all-manual mechanical film camera, there’s a finite number of shots in a roll, and every setting needs to be actively considered, so a volume shooting strategy isn’t really an option. I need to lay in wait, or move with purpose and attention, take the time to line up each shot (not just think about it), and hope that I captured the moment I saw with my mind’s eye. Because there’s a fraction of a second between pressing the shutter button and the camera capturing the image, and things really can change in that fraction of a second.

The practice of intuitively seeing the apex of movement, light and composition is the zen of photography, in the streets or anywhere else. The whole process is about slowing down, about evaluating scenes and seeing the shots as they emerge — sensing how the composition is going to come together and capturing it at just the right time, when everything in motion is also in balance.

Attention to those fundamentals is what I found in the dichotomy between digital and film photography, so I decided that’s what I wanted to focus on.

A year of shooting film

As 2022 was winding down, I found myself in Tokyo for two weeks, and largely on my own for about half that time. I overpacked for that trip. I took the Fuji XPro-3 and a couple of prime lenses, the Rollei 35S, and a Leica MP — the all manual, 35mm film camera that I had just picked up — along with a couple dozen rolls of film (an even split of black & white and color).

Neither the Fuji nor the Rollei made it out during that trip to Tokyo, they stayed stashed in my backpack in the hotel room closet. I shot 22 rolls over two weeks with the Leica. And I like the results of my Tokyo endeavors far more than those from the NYC ’22 trip. Not just because the Leica is an incredible camera that’s a joy to shoot with, but because I was more focused on the fundamentals of making photographs — being more purposeful, not rapid-firing the shutter at everything that caught my eye, but making an earnest attempt to use light, motion and composition to capture the scenes I saw unfolding.

Starting then, in December of 2022, I only shot film for 12 months — with the Leica when it made sense, and with Rollei the rest of the time. I never left home without the Rollei, unless I had the Leica with me. It was fun, challenging, and more immersive than shooting digital (especially when I started developing black & white film at home). It made me feel more connected to the process and the output than working with digital images, and I think it made me a better photographer…maybe.

Ricoh GRiii, a return to digital

When I returned to NYC in October ’23, I had both the Leica and the Rollei with me. No digital cameras. But shooting on-the-go, especially at night or indoors in tricky lighting like museums and galleries and bars and restaurants, and taking snapshots while I was hanging out with my wife and friends (living in the moment as opposed to living through the lens), I realized that I wanted a digital backup, something low profile and pocketable but powerful.

After a couple weeks of internet research, I decided the Ricoh GRiii was my best option. When it comes to digital cameras I’m big fan of Fuji, but Fuji doesn’t make anything quite like the GRiii. Its 28mm equivalent lens is a workable focal length for just about any situation, it’s palm-sized and easily pocketable, super quiet, and not at all flashy looking, but it boasts the tech specs to take decent images.

It’s got a lot of fancy settings that allow for the creation of “recipes” (settings combinations that result in film emulation and other treatments) for both black & white and color, but I haven’t explored those too much. I’ve been far less interested in what the camera can do, and more into exploring what I can do with the camera. So I shoot RAW images and convert, process, and edit as needed in Lightroom.

I started using the Ricoh GRiii in December of 2023, and I’ve been pleased with the results so far. It’s in my pocket about as often as the Rollei 35 — which is to say, I’ve always got one of them on me. Unless I’m out with the Leica, in which case I’ve probably also got the Ricoh in my bag or in my pocket.

This photoset contains photos made with the GRiii, in chronological order, while getting acquainted with it between December ’23 and February ’24. You can see my intent manifested here — mostly snapshot style photos, quick, candid, mundane, everyday life, and street shots, all pretty casually captured as I went about my days and nights…

New York City | 2023

An October visit to Manhattan has become an annual ritual for me (pandemic lockdowns notwithstanding). It’s the perfect time of year to spend a few days in one of the richest street photography environments in the world, visit some of my favorite museums, catch up with a few old friends, soak up a city vibe unlike any other.

This year, while I took pictures every day, I only really had one day dedicated to being in the streets with the camera. I was rained out on Saturday, but Friday was perfect — the sun was shining, the weather was typical NYC Fall plus 10 degrees, and the streets of midtown were full of tourists and locals, shoppers, protesters, and general hangers-out.

Starting at Bryant Park — there were a ton of photographers there, I’ve never seen so many other people out doing what I’m doing in such high concentration — I shot for a while around 42nd, then walked down and around Broadway to Madison Square, Union Square, and finally to Washington Square Park, lingering when the scenes called for it, moving on when I needed a fresh perspective. I suspect that route is a fairly standard trail for photographers shooting street in NYC. There’s a lot happening in that corridor of the city.

About half the photos in this set are from that day, the rest were shot in various other locations around the city — Central Park, Hells Kitchen, West Village,  Chelsea. All these photos were taken with a Leica MP and a 50mm f/2 Summicron. I shot a couple of rolls of Portra (one 400 and one 800) that Friday, which were processed at Underdog in West Oakland, and shot Tri-X 400 the rest of time, which I processed home, where I scanned it all.

Los Angles, CA | July, 2023

My year in photography really began over the summer. It’s not that I wasn’t taking pictures during the first half the year, but my effort wasn’t consistent and my output was far from prodigious. I was coming off a creative slump following what felt like a big project, work was crazy, the stars just weren’t aligned, so my attention to photography was sporadic.

So it was at this point that I found myself in Downtown Los Angeles over the fourth of July weekend with the expressed purpose of shooting photographs. My wife had work obligations in LA that weekend, and as I have no qualms whatsoever about riding her professional coattails for a free hotel room, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get some dedicated solo time with my camera in the subject rich streets of DTLA.

But it was kind of a rough go, a rocky start to what’s shaped up to be a reasonably productive second half of the year. The rough patch I experienced that weekend in LA was not necessarily a collection of pronounced individual issues. Rather, the vibe was weird and things just didn’t click.

I never really felt like I found a flow state while shooting over those three days. I only shot four rolls of film in that time, and I remember thinking that I botched more shots than I hit. I was frustrated with my lens choice and decided that I prefer a 50mm over a 28mm lens for street photography…but I hadn’t brought the 50mm with me. The weather was hot as hell, the air was swampy and smelly. Anime Expo was happening at Staples Center and there were costumed nerds everywhere, but they were uninteresting to me and I barely photographed any of them. An off duty jewelry store security guard threatened to shoot me.

More than once I stepped into a local bar and knocked back a drink or three in search of my mojo, to no avail. But I put in the work, and photos were taken. And that’s what matters.

I burned one roll of Portra 400 color film and got one decent shot out of it, so it got top billing, and three rolls of Tri-X 400 black & white, selects from which fill the gallery.

Closing Out 2022: I’m Still Taking Pictures

What Was I Even Doing in 2022?

As I look ahead to next year and plot some high-level goals & aspirations, I’ve been looking back over the last year of photographic output. While I can’t help thinking about how, why and when I pursue creative endeavors, and what my personal relationship is with it all, I ultimately tend to get frustrated with all that creative metacognition and go back to focusing on just doing the damn thing.

And when it comes down to doin the damn thing, I didn’t shoot enough this past year.

In any case, the images contained in the galleries sprinkled throughout this post represent my favorite film photos from 2022, taken with a variety of 35mm and medium format cameras. Give ‘em a click to expand.

What’s in Store for 2023?

Keeping it simple for 2023, there are just two things (I think) I want to focus on when it comes to photography:

1. Shoot more. And shoot more film…maybe exclusively shoot film? I guess I shot quite a bit of film in 2021 too, but some of my more notable photo excursions were shot with a digital camera. And to be clear, I really like my digital camera rig and I really enjoy shooting with it. And I’m not a film snob. But I regularly consider limiting my options as a means of up-leveling fundamental skills and digging deeper into creativity.

This idea of focusing more (if not exclusively) on film started in October, after a trip to NYC in which most of my film photos turned out like shit — I think because I split my focus on shooting digital and film simultaneously, and in the aftermath I really came face to face with the realization that I don’t approach them in the same way.

Fresh off that realization, I went to Tokyo in December and, while I took my core digital rig with me (a Fuji setup that, again, I like very much), I didn’t snap a single digital photo. I opted instead to use the Leica MP 35mm film camera exclusively as I explored that city. And while, as of this writing, the results are still TBD (the lab is closed until the new year), the experience was exhilarating, and also a little challenging in that it was entirely without any of the luxuries that digital or more feature-rich film cameras offer. The MP is all mechanical and all manual — it only requires a battery for the light meter, and the camera works fine if the battery dies, you just need to find an alternate way to meter — so it forced to me slow down and get used to having to manage every aspect of the process while on the move.  I came away from the experience with the unwavering feeling that I need a lot more of that.

2. Make more physical media — prints, booklets, foldy zines, whatever else I can come up with that’s equal parts a little polished, but still DIY, and not crazy expensive.

Sharing photos online is the quickest and easies way to connect with photo communities, especially in engaging and supportive environments like Glass, Mastodon and Flickr. But posting digital photography on the internet, even in places where genuine interest thankfully takes the place of algorithmic imperative, can feel a little like stuffing content into a void.

Exploring the impact of physical media, of sharing the tangible results of my photographic endeavors, is increasingly appealing to me these days. The reach won’t be nearly as broad as it can be in a global digital environment where finding new things is as easy as clicking on a hashtag, but I don’t care about that — I want to share work with people in formats that are tactile and interactive, held rather than scrolled through, can be passed on, left out on coffee tables or bookshelves or the tops of toilet tanks, and can be easily revisited.

Physical media just seems like a more worthwhile endeavor than posting for the fleeting engagement of likes, boosts and comments. Not that I’ll stop posting photos to the internet…

All that said, I’ve had 5”x7” prints of the photos for my next booklet project on the wall in my home office for literally months without any movement, so a bias toward action on the production side of things is definitely needed.

I think what it comes down to is that, more than any other kind of photographer, I’m an opportunistic photographer — I almost always have a camera on me — and unless I’m traveling, I rarely set out with the specific intent to shoot. That needs to change.

I need to make the time and put in the effort to approach photography with purpose: take pictures because I set out to take pictures, make things with the pictures because that’s how I want the work to be represented.

I’ll figure out what it all means later.

New York City | October, 2022

On a clear day in Manhattan the natural light is downright dynamic. As the sun moves across the sky, the light floods passages through narrow streets lined with tall buildings, and intersects main thoroughfares creating deep valleys of stark contrast in light and shade. When I’m holding a camera, this is the kind of environment that I see in black and white.

For a visit this past October — my first trip back to NYC since October, 2019 — I stayed at a hipster dive boutique hotel in Chelsea, in what’s known as the city’s Flower District, a single block of plant and flower stores on 28th Street between 6th and 7th Aves that service the bulk of the city’s floral and horticultural needs. The sheer amount of flora & foliage that hits the street first thing in the morning is impressive. It turns the sidewalks on either side of the busy one-way, single-lane street into a jungle of plants, trees and flowers that encroach on walking space, fill the environment with lush life, and cast wild shadows that divide visibility into into high contrast zones of light and shade.

The block starts bustling around 5am, several of the stores close mid-day, but many are open until late afternoon, so I managed to take advantage of the light and the action in the street most days, whether I was coming or going. In the morning I’d grab a coffee at a spot around the corner and move up the block east to west; if I was back on the block later in the day, I tried to roll up from the other direction, west to east. In both cases, I kept the sun at my back, giving me some cover and lighting up the subjects in front of me.

This strategy framed most of my travels throughout the city over six days. Whether I was headed to a museum in midtown, meeting some friends in the Village, or on my way to hit up a record store in the LES, whenever I moved through the city, I traveled mostly on foot and tried to roughly map out routes that let me take advantage of where the sun was going to be, in areas where I knew the foot traffic was likely to be busy. I tried to leave enough time to get to where I was going so I could stop and post up in spots where the light was especially good.

And even if it didn’t work out as planned and the sun was squarely overhead flooding the streets with light… New York still the most bustling and interesting city in North America, a target-rich photo environment regardless of the lighting particulars.

This collection of images contains both digital and 35mm film photographs. The digital images, which make up most of the batch, were taken with a Fuji X-Pro3 and an XF27mm f/2.8 lens (equivalent of 40mm on the Fuji’s APSC sensor); the film was shot using a Rollei 35S (also a 40mm f/2.8 lens) with Kodak Tri-X 400 35mm black & white film. A few of these shots are pretty decent, but they’re all passable enough to share publicly. (I might throw some outtakes into the next edition of One For The Road… just sayin’ .) Enjoy…

Los Angeles Noir | A Short Story in Four Photographs

“Please… I’ve come so far.”

Long Time No See | A Return to Blogging (sorta)

I’ve got a wicked case of writers block.

The last time I put anything on this blog was January, 2021, about 20 months ago, around the time I started my monthly newsletter, One For The Road, which became my main outlet for sharing photos, writing, and music.

I recently decided to make a change to the way I do things with photos and general writing — that is, to post that stuff to this blog instead of the monthly Substack email — and use OFTR to share some music recos and drop links to whatever I’ve done here.

And for some reason, that’s the only writing topic I’ve been able to focus on for a week: basically a blog post that classifies as a “meta procedural.” And holy shit is that boring.

So in lieu of something interesting to read, here’s something (hopefully) interesting to look at: a gallery of black & white 35mm film photos taken over the last few months, on Kodak Tri-X 400 with either the Rollei 35S or the Olympus XA.

One For The Road, a Newsletter

IMG_1229_jpg 2.JPG

In an attempt to shake off social media a bit; and as a way concentrate on my own creative endeavors, and those of my friends and other folks whose work I enjoy, respect and admire; and following in the footsteps of some photographers, writers, folks with community voices, and friends, I’ve decided to set up a monthly email dispatch. 

(Cue groaning / eye-rolling.)

I’m still figuring all this out, so things may shift over time, but I’m generally thinking it’ll contain some writing, some photos, and some links to music I’m listening to. I’ll do my best to keep the writing short, tight, and interesting, I might try to include other people from time to time. I manage to shoot one or two rolls of film and several digital photos every month, most of which never make it to Instagram (because that’s always seemed like a waste), so I’ll be including photos, maybe even in little curated collections. And as for music, my consumption level isn’t what it used to be but I still actively seek out new stuff, so there shouldn’t be any shortage of artists and records to write about.

I’m calling this thing One For The Road, and I’ll be sending it out at the end of each month. Think of it as a monthly night cap, some thoughts and images and sounds offered up, ad free, without any algorithmic manipulation or expectation of “engagement.” Hopefully it serves a break from the chaos that’s usually present on whatever electronic device you happen to spend too much time on.

If that’s remotely of interest to you, drop your email address into the box below, and hit the subscribe button. First One For The Road goes out on January 31…

Bandcamp Music That Mattered (to me): 2020

A few weeks ago, when the Spotify algorithm spit out everyone’s 2020 listening statistics and users started posting their social-media-friendly stats cards to Instagram (myself included…and then I felt dirty and deleted it), more than a few of my friends online responded by asking a similar version of the question: Yeah, but what did you get from Bandcamp this year? 

Spotify, whether you pay for it or suffer with ads, could never be credibly accused to supporting artists, big or small. Whereas Bandcamp, a distribution platform for independent musicians (some of whom also have record label deals and are also on Spotify, Apple Music, etc.), is artist friendly, enabling any independent musicians with high quality audio files and a PayPal account to sell their music online. Hence the point of the question: if you’re such a fan of music, how did you support the platform that supports artists?

(Full disclosure / excuses, excuses: I pay for a family subscription to Spotify so I don’t have to hear ads, and so my girl and my kid can listen to whatever they want without injecting Gwen Stefani or Billie Eilish into my feed. I have been considering switching everyone over to Apple Music for several reasons, but is there any difference between the two? Are they equally as evil? I need to do a little research. Regardless, the bottom line is that the streaming services are great for continuous background listening, and for having massive back catalogs, and for keeping up with the music and artists who aren’t on Bandcamp. Anyway…)

Going above and beyond its already fair business model, Bandcamp spent 2020 supporting independent musicians with Bandcamp Fridays, one day each month when the platform gave up its cut of sales to artists, and they’ll continue doing Bandcamp Fridays until the pandemic has passed.

I’ve been a fan of Bandcamp for a long time, having used it both as a musician, and as a fan. Throughout 2020, I bought dozens of albums on the platform, many of which I picked up vinyl or cassette, as well as the streaming / downloadable digital versions.

So here are a few highlights from my 2020 Bandcamp experience…

Some Notable 2020 Bandcamp Buys…

  • Suite For Max Brown | Jeff Parker released January 24, 2020
    The phrase “experimental contemporary jazz” doesn’t really do it justice, but I’m not sure how else to describe this record, other than to say it’s dope. A good friend put me onto Suite For Max Brown, and I was hooked after the first listen. Then I went down the rabbit hole with the record label, International Anthem, and picked up older releases like Ism by Junius Paul, and Makaya McCraven’s In the Moment.

  • Self Titled | The Whip released March 27, 2020
    I have a fun story about seeing this band on the one tour they did a couple decades ago. (Long story.) The 45 that I bought from them at that show is a prize in my collection, and there were some not-great-quality MP3s of other songs and a couple live show recordings floating the internet for years, but Wantage USA released a proper LP earlier this year, and it’s awesome. Heavy, loud, brash rock music. Get some.

  • Deleted Scenes | Once And Future Band released April 10, 2020
    The latest and greatest from the Bay Area’s best purveyors of smart, snappy, proggy, pop-drenched rock music. I’m not sure how, but I ended buying two copies of this on vinyl (black, and green-and-clear “mint dip”), and I’m not mad at it.

  • Loops DELUXE [Beat Tape] | Eddou XL released April 18, 2020
    My man Eddou XL has one of the best ears for loops of anyone I know, and his penchant for seeking out, chopping up, and lacing together amazing jazz, funk and soul samples into fresh new compositions is a magical gift. I can listen to this on repeat all day.

  • Blue Room | THE iMPS released April 24, 2020
    The iMPS are old friends who provided a good part of the soundtrack to some very formative years for me. Regardless of the personal connection, I can objectively say that they made some of the best pop-infused loud rock I’ve ever heard. Though this live EP was released this year, it was recorded back in 1999, and it’s indicative of everything that made this band so great.

  • Urgent Care | Rough Francis released May 1, 2020
    Another recommendation from a friend, this Burlington, VT band plays a kind of catchy punk rock that doesn’t annoy me. I actually really like this record (which, frankly, is always a little surprising to me).

  • IT'S 52 BEATS IN A YEAR | DJ Jazzy Jeff released May 1, 2020
    Jeff made one beat per week for a year, and you can get ‘em all here for 10 bucks. It’s Jazzy Jeff, what else do you need to know?

  • Singing Sands | Los Days released May 8, 2020
    I’ll buy pretty much anything that Tommy Guerrero puts out, and this collection of super mellow instrumental California desert jams with musical ace Josh Lippi doesn’t disappoint.

  • The Red Sentence | Jihad the Roughneck MC released May 31, 2020
    Third Sight’s Jihad is a Bay Area legend who’s repped strong for the shadowy fringes of Bay rap for decades (though I think he’s in LA these days). This is just one of several projects he put out in 2020; it’s not the only one I picked up, but it’s my favorite.

  • O Som Psicodélico De L. C. V. | Luiz Carlos Vinhas released June 1, 2020
    This rare 1968 release was reissued this year, and was featured on the Bandcamp app’s home screen. I love Brazilian music — especially the slightly psychedelic Tropicália / Bossa Nova stuff — and I was hooked on this right away. 

  • Soul Fidelity | Jansport J released June 5, 2020
    J’s style is both versatile and familiar enough to suit any mood, but it’s also distinctively unique. And whether glitchy or smoothed out, it’s always got plenty of that classic LA vibe. (Side note: I learned about Jansport J, and several other beat makers, from Gino Sorcinelli’s Micro Chop newsletter.)

  • Thousandaire | Thousandaire released June 12, 2020
    Atlanta’s Thousandaire makes loud and distorted, slightly off-kilter rock music. That kind of stuff resonates with me, and this album is great. 

  • Nyquil | Dankslob released June 22, 2020
    Lyricist Luke Sick and DJ G-Pek deliver deep grooves carved into layers of chopped samples and dusty drums (and some live instrumentation, maybe?), and button it all up with hooks that are somehow both sloppy and laser sharp. It’s weird, too, in the best ways.

  • Exhale 01 | Controller 7 released June 26, 2020
    Exhale 01 is my favorite 2020 Controller 7 album (he also released the excellent Tommy and Richie Present “Billy” with Buck 65 and Couch with Mestizo this year). Made between April and June of 2020, at a time when the social, political and health situations in America were all especially grim, the beats on Exhale 01 exude the particularly heavy darkness of that time period.

  • Dogfeet | Dogfeet released August 18, 2020
    I’m a sucker for the dirty fuzz tones of late ‘60s and early ‘70s drugged-out, blues-based rock music made by shaggy, pie-eyed losers. This reissue fits the bill. 

  • The Black Moon | Valium Aggelein released August 21, 2020
    This reissue of a record originally released in 1998 is an almost-perfect, ethereal, guitar-driven soundtrack for focus time, equally ideal for intense heads-down work, background sounds, or exploratory listening.

  • Atlas Vending | Metz released October 9, 2020
    The latest Metz offering follows their previous LP in being more approachable than earlier works. It’s still loud, noisy and abrasive, but the songs are tight, with catchy little bits that emerge from the fray and pull you in deeper.

  • A Funky Bad Time | The Du Rites released November 13, 2020
    Mostly instrumental funk music made during a pandemic, ill political season, and time of general unrest by a funky NYC duo who have put out an LP every year since they started. I haven’t missed a Du Rites release yet, and I’m not about to.

  • Songs To Yeet At The Sun | Soul Glo released November 6, 2020
    This band goes hard as hell. Furious, aggressive, righteous.

  • A Jawn Supreme Vol. 1 - 3 | Small Professor released November 20, 2020
    Three different A Jawn Supreme beat tape style releases make up this ultimate Jawn collection. I bought the digital versions of each as they were initially released throughout the year, but Small Professor put them all into one and released the collection on cassette (as well as a digital stream / download), so I had to double down and get the tape.

  • Pardon My French | Jahari Massamba Unit released November 27, 2020
    Karim Riggins on drums and Madlib on everything else — so you know, rhythm-heavy experimental jazz-y stuff. RIYL Yesterday’s New Quintet, new sounds.

  • Demolition Strictly | Grand Invincible releases January 15, 2021
    Signature West Bay boom bap from DJ Eons & Luke Sick (who you may remember from such other 2020 bangers as Dankslob), and one of my favorite rap records of the year. You can stream the whole album right now — I think the release date refers to the vinyl (which of course, I preordered).

  • I Told You So | Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio releases January 29, 2021
    I had never heard of Delvon Lamarr, but checked out I Told You So on the recommendation of a friend, and was blown away by this Seattle trio. I preordered this album on vinyl, then went back through the group’s Bandcamp catalog and bought the other releases too.

Honorable Mentions…

  • DJ Paul Nice. I used to listen to Paul Nice mix CDs back in the day, and became aware earlier this year that he's got most of that stuff, and a ton more, on Bandcamp. I listen to his Brazil mix series pretty regularly, and Do You Pick Your Feet In Poughkeepsie?, a mix of music from ‘70s crime drama movies and TV, is one of my all time favorites.

  • DJ Harrison. Another one I owe to Gino Sorcinelli’s Micro Chop newsletter, DJ Harrison is a musician (multi-instrumentalist), producer and engineer from Richmond, VA. His Bandcamp catalog is crazy deep, and there's a ton of gold in there. Just dig and listen.

  • Brycon. Brycon stays busy. Here's a quick list of the dope stuff he did this year that I listen to regularly…and this is only the stuff I know about, there's probably like 56 other records out that he worked on, which I’m forgetting or just don’t know of: Brutalism | Brycon, The Cleansing | Amani Jade, There’s No More Room In Hell 6 | Brycon)

  • Backfilling. Many of my longtime favorite, more established bands are on Bandcamp, but I generally listen to them either on vinyl, or via the evil streaming service, so I took the opportunity in 2020 to add their music to my Bandcamp collection, including but not limited to: Hot Snakes, Torche, The Blind Shake, La Luz, Elder, Fight Amp, and tons more.

So there you go.

Go to Bandcamp, set yourself up with an account if you don’t already have one, and start digging in. I guarantee you’ll find something that you’re into, and you’ll be supporting the artists directly. You can also follow me there (I’ll probably follow you back). 

And if you must, you can also find me on Spotify, and see what I listen to there.

Adventures in Landscape Photography: Shooting Point Lobos

I don’t go around calling myself a street photographer (or any kind of photographer, really), but for the most part I’ve generally focused my photographic efforts on streets or urban spaces, and the people, objects, architecture — whatever else captures my attention — within them. But my earliest exposure to photography was the nature focused work of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.

I grew up on the Central Coast of California, south of San Francisco, where the names Adams and Weston are as synonymous with photography as Steinbeck is with literature. My dad, being a seasoned photographer himself, was always a fan of the local masters and that’s what I was raised to see as the gold standard of the medium. I’m certainly a fan of Adams and Weston, but I’ve never been interested in emulating either of these two pioneers, and nature is not a subject that I’ve explored a whole lot in my own pursuits.

But back in July, when the decision was made to take a quick road trip from Oakland down the coast for a midweek escape from the apartment (after almost 5 months of laying real low), I revisited the old copy of Weston’s My Camera At Point Lobos that my dad gifted me, and felt somewhat motivated to have a morning hike around Point Lobos, just south of Carmel, to make some photos. It’s a nice place for a light hike, photographer or not.

Maybe it’s the Central California coastal climate that keeps the Point Lobos State Natural Preserve in what feels like constant, concurrent cycles of decay and rejuvenation. It’s two seasons at once, all the time: fall and spring. The bright greens of lush growth are always accompanied by the paler greens, bright reds, oranges and yellows of degeneration as the forest eats itself, the older growth becoming mulch for what’s coming up next.

I shot that morning with the FujiFulm X-Pro 3 and 18mm f/2 lens for a wider view. It was the inaugural run of the X-Pro 3, which I had just picked up and expected to prove in the streets rather than the forest. But I’m not one to stand on ceremony, and either setting is potentially as fruitful as the other.

I also shot with the Minolta XG-M, loaded with Cinestill 800T 35mm, and a 50mm f/1.7 for a tighter view. The Cinestill is, admittedly, an odd film choice for this type of outing. A tungsten film, it seems to prefer bright artificial lights, especially reds and blues, in high contrast situations — think: urban nighttime photography. But I wondered if it might react interestingly to the gray skies, light spikes through the forest canopy, and the colors & texture of the Point Lobos landscape. The outcome wasn’t exactly what I expected, but I’m not mad at it either.

Here’s a gallery of both film and digital snaps from a morning hike around Point Lobos in late July 2020…

I Made Some Postcards

I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of the digital format for viewing photography. Screens of any size — but especially of the sizes that people use the most these days (phones, tablets, laptops) — are not ideal for photography, and they’re no substitute for tangible materials.

So I’ve been experimenting with printed formats for a little while now. I’ve done prints in various sizes, from 4”x6” to 16”x20” and even some giant 3’x4’ engineering prints (all of which have been either given away, or are piling up around the house). I’ve put out one booklet, and have some others in the works (it’s been slow going), and now, like a ton of other photographers, both professionals and pretenders like me, I’ve had some postcards printed.

I first started to consider postcards last year while I was in Berlin on vacation. I bought a bunch of random museum gift shop and book store cards during my time in the German capital, and asked friends & followers on Instagram and Twitter to DM their addresses to me if they wanted one. I got more than enough responses to send out all the cards I’d picked up. It was fun for me, and people seemed pretty happy to get them.

Postcards are easy to make, easy to store, fun to send and receive, and these days, seem like a good way to emphasize the importance of the postal service, and its role in the the affordable distribution of creative physical media. The timing of this project, given what’s happening with the USPS on the national political stage, is not lost on me. And as I mentioned previously, I’m certainly not the only person with a camera who’s slinging postcards right now.

So I’ve been plotting on this set of cards for a while, but like everything photography-related that I do, it always seems to take longer than I anticipate. And ultimately, like the Wheatpaste Oaxaca book — this being the first pass at a certain kind of print product that I’ve never really experimented with — it’s kind of a test run.

These cards are 5”x7”, on 15pt. premium card stock, with a satin matte finish. There’s no theme to this series of 10, it’s just images I thought would work well as cards. Some of the photos were made with a digital camera, some shot on 35mm film. Most are black and white, a few are color. All of these photos were made between January 2019 and July 2020 in Oakland, CA, San Francisco, CA, Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY, and Berlin, DE.

I’m happy to put one into the post for you, or sell you a handful on the cheap. So here’s the deal…

  • If you just want a postcard from me, hit me up RIGHT HERE, and send me your mailing address. I’ll scribble some words on a card, stamp it up, and drop it in the post for you. Or…

  • You can BUY 5 POSTCARDS FOR 5 BUCKS, and I’ll throw a random selection of 5 cards into a manila envelope, and send them to you so you can write on them and send them to your peoples. (You gotta get your own stamps.)

Cool? Cool.

“OK GIMME SOME CARDS NOW.”

Adaptive Strategies: Small Acts of Civil Disobedience in the Name of Sanity

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Once, when I was a young teen, I walked into the dining room at my parents’ house to find my stepdad sitting at the table with a glass of beer, a stack of mail, and a stack of shims in front of him. He was casually opening each piece of mail — they were all credit card offers — and separating the included self-addressed bulk-return-postage envelopes into a third stack. When he’d finished opening them all, he tossed all the credit card application paperwork into the trash, and in between sips of beer, he began slipping a shim into each return envelope, sealing it, and placing it into final stack.

Retired now, the old man was an architect. As someone whose career has been a study in the balance of art and science, he’s always been a measured, careful person with a steady, well-planned approach to every project, from designing a house to making a sandwich. His work had him regularly visiting construction sites, and for this particular project, he’d gone out of his way to collect a stack of wooden shims — “a thin, often tapered piece of material (such as wood, metal, or stone) used to fill in space between things (as for support, leveling, or adjustment of fit).” — that were ideally sized to fit standard business envelopes. 

Bulk-mailed credit card offers have always been big business, but it seemed especially so at that time. It was the mid / late 1980s, the age of Wall Street and Gordon Gekko’s “greed-is-good” ideology, the early days of the infamous savings & loan crisis, of fast and loose newly deregulated banking that really foreshadowed the out-of-control mess this nation is in now — unchecked corporate greed and Wall Street hegemony as the result of a bought-and-paid-for, profit-before-people federal government. I didn’t really understand it all at the time, but it was the modern financial wild west, and there were a lot of envelopes from credit card companies on the dining room table.

I sat there for a little while and watched what he was doing — methodically sliding these strips of wood into the return envelopes, sealing them and stacking them neatly, occasionally taking a drink of beer. I finally asked why he was stuffing the envelopes with shims, and he explained that he was tired of getting credit card offers in the mail. It had become the bulk of what filled the mailbox on any given day, and there was really no way stop from them from coming. So he’d decided to do what he could make the banks’ effort cost them a little more than they bargained for.

He explained that the banks paid a weight-based bulk shipping rate for the return envelopes (no stamps required), and by filling them with shims and returning them, he was driving up the cost of the return postage. The weight of the shims was far greater than the weight of the paper applications, and even though he knew it wasn’t making much of a dent in the overall cost of the banks’ mailing operations, any little thing he could do to make them pay more was worth the meager effort. On top of that, he was making them waste man-hours in processing returns, not containing completed credit card applications, but useless pieces of wood. 

“It’s the small revolutions…I do what I can.” 

I only saw him doing this once, but I suspect it was a campaign he carried on for a while.

As far as acts of civil disobedience go, the ol’ shim-in-the-credit-card-application-return-envelope is a pretty benign foray into the realm of nonviolent protests. But at this point in history, especially now, 8 (or 10…? whatever) weeks into COVID shelter-in-place and the accompanying national economic meltdown, I’ll take what I can get. And frankly, that’s not much.

The more time I spend on lockdown marinading in my own mental funk, the more I read about the corporate donor class getting richer off this shit, and about the people out there protesting the quarantine guidelines designed to ensure their safety — “protests” that are fully orchestrated by national political media, and are nothing more than staged theatrical events attended by suckers — the more I think about this incident from my youth. It was a teaching moment, watching a responsible parental adult doing something that, while pretty minor, was a deliberate act designed to disrupt, if only momentarily and on a minuscule scale, the American corporate finance machine. No fame, no social media flex, just pure antiestablishment intention, acted on with casual intent. Do people still do that?

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I saw a bit on Twitter recently about someone who likes filling online shopping carts, then closing the browser tab, which I imagine works better if they’re not logged into whatever site they’re window shopping at. Pretty flaccid as far as civil disobedience goes, but probably satisfying on some level…so okay. I saw another person on Twitter who, instead of doing his work, spent a day in Photoshop attributing socialist quotes (from Ho Chi Minh, Guy DeBord, Fidel Castro, etc.) to conservative American icon and OG neocon puppet Ronald Regan, then distributing them to specifically targeted online locations frequented by baby boomer centrists. Not bad — funny for sure, but really just fish in a barrel.

Trolling boomers on social media and ding-dong-ditching AI shopping carts doesn’t really carry the revolutionary gravitas of returning credit card bulk mail envelopes, which were originally meant to increase the capital burden of working people, filled with harmless yet weighty pieces of wood with the sole intent of increasing the cost of the direct mail program, and wasting the man hours of the schlubs tasked with processing them. That’s a pretty high bar for a low-key revolutionary activity.

Small, solitary acts of selfless, anonymous individualism, apolitical anti-corporate shit-stirring, and positive anti-social behavior…I think that these are some of the bright spots I’m missing in what’s become an otherwise all too drudging existence.

I know social media sucks, but hit me @maxsidman and brighten my day — send me worthy examples of brilliant small-scale civil disobedience so I can know that there’s still something worth believing in. Thanks in advance.

[Adaptive Strategies is a blog series I’m slowly working on while I’m sheltering-in-place so I don’t catch the COVID. Each of these posts is about whatever happens to be going in my head…or they may also be about nothing in particular, because I’m just trying to exercise some mental muscles.]

Adaptive Strategies: Social Media Distancing

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How is it that I’ve been self-isolating for over three weeks now, and I’m experiencing more acute social fatigue than I do when I’m free to leave the house whenever I want? 

Fucking social media. 

A friend of mine recently described the current state of Twitter — in a Tweet, of course — as one long scrolling panic attack. Totally on point. 

But it’s not just Twitter. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram — it’s hard to go anywhere on the social internet* these days without feeling like you’re under constant threat… Threat of pressured conspicuous consumption. (Retail COVID therapy, anyone?) Threat of global pandemic. Threat of a super wealthy, predatory capitalist vampire class and its puppet government enriching themselves at the expense of the rest us. Threat of the rest of us, who can’t seem to get our heads out of our asses for long enough to realize the threats we’re under because we’re too busy arguing online about who’s at fault for all these threats. The threat of existential exhaustion from constantly being under threat — fucking christ how much more of this shit can I take?! Etc.

If there’s one thing I really hope to take away from this whole quarantine thing, it’s to never forget that time spent staring at social media is mostly wasted time. 

All the time throughout the day I spend scrolling though Instagram or Twitter (my chosen social media poisons) is time I could have spent doing something that actually enriches me as a person — playing music, reading a book, learning a language, writing, making or editing photographs, connecting remotely with friends and family… Not only are those all things I actually do, but they’re also things I usually “struggle” to find time to do. I’ve never struggled to find time to stare at social media.  

Yes, I’m generally pretty busy (less so under forced isolation, even though I’m fortunate enough to still be working), but I get those weekly screen time reports on my phone, and I see exactly how much I waste on social media. It’s literally hours every week. If I stopped fucking around on Twitter and the ‘Gram, I might have already achieved basic fluency in German or Spanish, or have read a few more books, finished putting together a couple more photo zines, have hours more recorded music, be better about maintaining a training regimen in isolation, etc.

I tell myself that I go to social media to keep up with the latest news and info with the least amount of bullshit. I guess there is some truth to that. Most established news outlets (TV, radio, online) spew little more than trash corporate talking points, and social media is supposed to facilitate and amplify independent voices, right?

And sure there’s some of that out there, but it’s a double-edged sword: For every independent voice of truth, rational viewpoint, and thread of thoughtful conversation on social media, there are dozens lunatic dullards flooding the internet with opinions and ideas that no one ever asked for, as if they’re logical, factual or valuable. They’re none of those things. But that’s free-speech I guess, and while I’m not a fan of curtailing people’s ability to speak their minds, no matter how asinine, nowhere is the failing of American intellect and emotional intelligence more frustratingly on public display than social media. So it is what it is.

I think I’ve come to terms with an acceptable amount of social media consumption: Get my quick news fix (don’t ever read the fucking comments), scan for new music / art / photography / design, look at some cool classic cars / architecture / boxing clips, and check in on friends from afar… then get the hell off that shit. I figure if I can’t do all that in 15 minutes, maybe twice a day, I’m seriously fucking up.

Beyond that, though, trying to balance being an informed citizen and not turning into a total basketcase is a constant battle.  So what’s the solution? Fuck I don’t know. 

I deleted my Facebook page in 2018 and it was extremely liberating. I don’t miss it at all, even though I no longer know when most of my favorite bands are touring or releasing new music, when anyone got married, has a birthday, or drank a smoothie. But I also don’t miss feigning interest in events I get invited to but couldn’t actually give a shit about, and I really don’t miss learning more than I wanted to about the opinions of people who, in many cases, I’m only connected to through a viscously manipulative advertising machine masquerading as a “community.” 

My point is, ultimately — framed in terms of what we’re all going through now — I think it all comes back to social distancing.

Do you really need to know the mundane details of the daily lives of everyone you’ve ever met for long enough to seek each other out on social media? Can you really not live without reading every half-assed hot-take about the daily outrage from the worlds of politics, Hollywood, or whatever cultural landscape matters most to you? Probably not.

So give it some space. Put the phone down, or at least swap out FB, Twitter and the ‘Gram for Candy Crush (the productivity levels are about the same, and I guarantee you that puzzle games are way less stressful).

And okay, I realize that we’re all relying on social media right now to keep us connected and informed because we’re forcibly separated (and for a good cause), but once we’re all back out in the world, maybe let’s all do this: Take two weeks off. Don’t use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Just walk away, and see how it changes your perspective. It’ll probably make you happier and healthier.

(Oh and hey, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and Instagram, @maxsidman. #likeandsubscribe)

*Except maybe TikTok. I don’t use that shit, but my daughter is on it, and from what I can tell it’s just millions of kids lip-sync reenacting movie and TV scenes, and online dance-battling while standing still ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Adaptive Strategies is a blog series I’m working on while I’m confined to my home during the Bay Area’s coronavirus shelter-in-place lockdown. Each of these posts is about whatever I happen to be going through, or what I’m doing to deal with whatever is going through my head, as we’re all self-isolating…or maybe they’re about nothing in particular.]

Adaptive Strategies: Who You Gonna Call

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[So I think this is the first in a run of blogging-as-coping-mechanism posts I’ll try to publish every few days…maybe once a week…as long as the ol’ pandemic lasts. “Adaptive Strategies” refers to rapid, flexible responses to change, in which the formulation and implementation of coping strategies happen simultaneously — in this case, to deal with being mostly cooped up at home during a pretty stressful global health event. Specifically, in the case of this blog series, it’s just me blathering about whatever ill shit is going on in my head while I can’t get to life on the outside due to threat of sickness and death. Good times. Note that the writing might get a bit stream-of-consciousness-y. But fuck it, whatever. Read on…or don’t.]

Like most everyone else around me, I am currently “sheltering in place” — working remotely and otherwise biding my time in self-isolation to do my part in slowing the pace of a pandemic that’s proven to be swift, mysterious, and deadly. 

It doesn’t help that the national crisis infrastructure which people rely on to act quickly and concisely to deal with these sorts of things has been pretty much totally dismantled in favor of for-profit programs by rich assholes, for rich assholes. Basically, what we’ve been lead to believe is a safety net is in fact a giant gaping hole at the top of a bottomless pit.

And frankly, if you’ve been paying attention for the last couple decades, but especially the last few years, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that we can’t count on the system to take care of us. But it’s not super helpful or healthy to deal with all this quarantine and failure bullshit from an outlook rooted solely in mistrust and disdain. So while I maintain a pretty virulent fuck-this-system mindset, I’m also aware that, in order to keep myself from turning into a total basket case, I need to remember who I can count on, and why. 

So here’s a quick list — incomplete for sure, but top-of-mind at the moment — of some folks I’ve come to rely on for various things that get me through my day-to-day. Knowing that they’re still out there reminds me that there’s some good in the world, and not everyone is a shitheeled ratfucker who’s out for profit over all else…

Independent musicians… This past Friday 3/20, Bandcamp.com waved its 15% fee so that musicians who sell through the site could keep 100% of their sales. Apparently the fans stepped up. I read that Bandcamp booked over $3M in sales that day, all of which went directly the artists. I am proud to say that I was responsible for .001% of that (about $30), but I also buy pretty regularly from Bandcamp (even if the artists are streaming on Spotify or Apple Music, because those streaming services fuck artists over pretty hard). And while I certainly don’t think I deserve a cookie for my regular patronage of Bandcamp artists, what I’m saying is that I don’t need the promise of waived fees to back people who make music I like. I support independent musicians because they do cool shit, and because new music and cool shit make me happy. And I’ll take as much happy as I can get most days, but especially right now.

Local restaurants that are (barely) keeping the lights on while restricted to take-out and delivery service… I was in my neighborhood spot this morning grabbing a coffee and a loaf of bread. My friend Isaac — who lives on the block with his wife and young son — owns the place, which is currently serving as the lone storefront for his neighborhood empire. He owns and operates a coffee shop and pizza place, from which he also runs a retail and wholesales bakery operation. He’s currently got all three businesses going under one roof to maximize expenses and operations, and things are tight. But when we spoke this morning, despite his own obvious levels of stress, he only expressed concern for the community of service industry folks (including a good portion of his own staff) who are mostly laid off right now, and gratitude for being able to continue serving the neighborhood. Issac is an exemplary human being, and so are most of the people I know who work in the service industry — restaurant and bar owners, servers and bartenders, baristas, etc. Many of them have been laid off, some are holding out, running take-out and delivery-only businesses just to try to keep the lights on. Seeing these people struggle is fucking terrible, but seeing them fight for survival is inspiring. And while I can’t afford to eat out for every meal, we are definitely ordering from our local spots on the afternoons and evenings that we would normally be at a table or the bar in these places. There’s also a huge number of service industry pages on GoFundMe right now, and they’re all worthy of support, so if you can, please find something local to where you live, and do help them. 

Friends and family… During this shelter-in-place situation, you shouldn’t be hanging out with people you don’t live with, but that doesn’t mean you can’t connect with people. This is the age of FaceTime (or Zoom or Google Hangouts or whatever), so it’ easy to reach out to your folks, siblings, cousins, friends, etc. There is a ton of scientific research that show the positive mental health benefits of social interaction — even if it’s through a screen. Basically, just getting some through-device face-to-face conversation with people who are important to you can do wonders for your psyche. I really only catch up with my mom that way, but I know people who have done virtual happy hours, virtual book clubs, whatever. If you need to talk to someone, you can, and should.

My own dam self… I’ve always been an introvert, and as I get older, I find myself embracing hermithood. I really have no problem social distancing as a way of life, but that doesn’t mean I’m a shut-in either. I have a routine, which has me out of the house on the regular, and especially now that I can’t leave the house as I please, I miss the routine. I can’t go to the gym. I can’t go to my neighborhood spots for food or coffee or drinks or records, I can’t go walking around to take pictures , or go play music with bandmates, or meet up with friends. It sucks. But here we are. I’m reminded that I can only really rely on myself (which I’ve pretty much got a PhD in), so I’m doing the only things I can to cope — work, make music, mess around with photos, find little home projects to bang on, and write stupid stuff to post to this blog, all in an effort to keep me sane. I’m doing fine. (Full disclosure: I do live with my partner and my daughter, and while I can count on them to be there for me, I can’t lean too heavily on them because they’re dealing with this shit too, and the last thing I want to do is drive them crazy.)

Wheatpaste Oaxaca [Booklet]

In an effort to put a little distance between my photography and the digital realm (Instagram, Flickr, Twitter, this web site, my damn phone, etc.), I’ve been experimenting with printed images. Not that anything I’m doing should be considered high art, but the experience of interacting with photographs (or drawings, paintings, almost any art really) can be so much more immersive in the tactile, physical realm.

In pursuit of this notion, I recently put together a small booklet of images that I snapped in Oaxaca back in 2018, which have been collecting digital dust in Lightroom ever since. This little project is more of a test than a serious effort — a test of my vision for actual photography booklets and ‘zines going forward, and a test of the printing service I used to get the job done.

Frankly, while I think theses picture are cool, I don’t really consider the images “photography.” I think it’s important to make the distinction between actual photographic pursuits (use of light, composition, etc.) and these casual snaps of other people’s artwork wheatpasted on walls all over Oaxaca de Juarez, MX.

But all things considered, I think the result is a pretty fresh little booklet. Good enough for coffee tables and the tops of toilet tanks, anyway. Check it out…

WHEATPASTE OAXACA
16 Pages / 16 Full Color Images.
5.5” x 8.5” Staple-Bound Booklet on 100 lb. Satin Finish Paper.
All Images Made in Oaxaca de Juarez, MX in May / June 2018.

I’ve got 50 of these things, and I really only wanna keep one or two, so here’s the deal: I’m gonna give them away. If you want one, here are a couple options…

  • OPTION 1: FREE. If you live in the Bay Area and you wanna hang out — get a drink, a coffee, some food, dig for records, walk around and shoot photos, whatever — I’ll bring you a copy of the booklet and you can have it. (If you know me IRL, just hit my DMs, text, email, whatever. If you don’t actually know me but still wanna meet up and cop a free booklet, contact me here.)

  • OPTION 1: ALMOST FREE. If you don’t live in the Bay and you want one (or if you do live in the Bay and you’d just rather not see me, but still want one — totally fine, too, BTW), just follow that link below, hit me on PayPal with $5 to cover the shipping + material costs, and I’ll drop one in the mail for you. If this is you, go here —> WHEATPASTE OAXACA

Easy.

And if I still have a bunch of these things in a month, I’m gonna start covert-dropping them on the impulse buy counters next to the registers at the local Pete’s and Starbucks because fuck it.

Berlin, DE | October 2019

Kreuzberg, Berlin, DE

Kreuzberg, Berlin, DE

There’s this thing I do with the photos I take while traveling, after I return home: I hate them.

[skip all these words and just see the photos]

I immediately offload the images from my digital camera to the hard drive I use with Lightroom, and I have the rolls of film I shot developed, and briefly review the negatives. Then I ignore it all. I won’t look back at the digital images in Lightroom, and I’ll leave the negatives from the film in an archival binder, for several weeks. Or longer. Months.

I was particularly bad about this after a trip to Berlin this past October. I think several factors contributed to the more-than-usual neglect of these travel photos — the holidays, always a busy time, hit shortly after I got back; I’ve been working a lot, the end of last year and the beginning of this year have been particularly busy; and I bought a negative scanner toward the end of last year (scanning is where the photo lab costs really skyrocket), so I spent some time getting ramped up on using it, with the Berlin negatives as my training set, but definitely focusing more on getting good scans over actually paying attention to the photos themselves.

Tempelhof Field Park, Neukölln, Berlin, DE

Tempelhof Field Park, Neukölln, Berlin, DE

Further complicating the matter, I’ve also been pretty down on digital as an artistic display format. Regardless of the pluses and minuses of various photo sharing sites and apps, I just don’t think the screen of a mobile device, or even a laptop, is a great place to experience photography. So I’ve been experimenting with printing — I’ve had a bunch of machine prints made, testing out paper types and sizes (small 4x6 and 5x7, medium 8x10, and large 16x20…even a couple 3’x4’ engineering prints). I’m still not sure what to do with them all, but the tactile and visual experience of photo prints is a lot cooler than looking at pictures on a screen. So I haven’t been super motivated to load a buncha images onto this site, or pump them into the void that is Instagram.

Turkish Market, Kreuzberg, Berlin, DE

Turkish Market, Kreuzberg, Berlin, DE

Anyway, after a few months of messing around off-and-on with the film and digital images I made in Berlin — and coming to some grips with the whole “hating on digital” thing — I think I’m at a point where I‘m comfortable sharing these pictures.

Berlin is a great place for making photographs. From architecture to art, nature, food and street scenes, the city’s history, culture and range of settings provide a great background for capturing spaces and moments. I found my photographic eye drawn to the things that represent the city’s approach to urban development — the architecture is widely varied and reflects Berlin’s rich history (cultural and political), and 40% of Berlin is green spaces and waterways, so I didn’t experience much in the way of endless, overbearing urbanity. Everyday life was a natural subject as well. There’s so much going on there — street markets, galleries, cafe and bar culture, protests, etc. — that I almost always had a camera in my hand, and I took almost 1400 pictures in nine days.

In my experience, Berliners are mostly friendly and pretty chill — and when I travel, I try to keep a low profile, stay polite and humble when dealing with locals, and generally just not be a shithead, which helps — but they’re also extremely, and understandably, weary of technology’s influence on modern life. As such, they’re very much proponents of digital-age privacy, and more than any place I’ve ever been, not interested in having a camera leveled at them. So I was careful about photographing people, opting for a less intrusive approach — or at least a stealthy one when the occasion allowed — while shooting in the streets. (And even so, I once accidentally photographed a street market cheesemonger who stepped into my frame as I was pressing the shutter button, and then promptly let me have it in German, which is a pretty sharp tongue to get cursed out in. I sincerely apologized, but didn’t bother trying to explain that he wasn’t intended to be a part of the shot — my German’s not good enough for rapid-fire mea culpas, and he wouldn’t have cared anyway.)

Cafe, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin, DE

Cafe, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin, DE

I had two cameras with me in Berlin: a FujiFilm x100f (digital, shooting at 35mm, or 28m with the wide angle conversion lens), and an Olympus XA (ultra compact 35mm film camera) loaded with either Kodak Tri-X 400 black and white, or Kodak ColorPlus 200. Everything decent that I came back with is IN THIS GALLERY, RIGHT HERE.

Los Angeles, CA | January, 2020

As the 2019 winter holidays wound down and 2020 was just getting started, after New Years and before I was expected back at work, I snuck down to LA for a few days to enjoy the weather, catch up with some friends, eat some food and have a few drinks. I made some photos too.

I still have to get a couple rolls of film developed from those few days, but I since the volume of digital photos I made was pretty low, I wanted to get through them (so I could get back to procrastinating all the Berlin pix I still haven’t finished poring through).

The film I shot there was black and white, but I kinda like the color images I captured with the Fuji x100f while roaming LA. Black and white for street photography is generally a natural fit no matter where it’s happening, but something about LA really brings out my desire to shoot color, especially in patterns, and in spaces without people in them. I’ve always been drawn to making photos of urban locales devoid of human subjects, and there’s a vastness to LA that doesn’t exist in too many other places. Capturing pieces of that that vastness without the intrusion of the population always seems to carry extra weight for me.

At any rate, there are a few people in these pix, but mostly not. As soon as I get that film developed, and scan the negatives, I’ll add them to this set, and maybe to some of the galleries on the site. In the meantime, enjoy. Or don’t…

New York City | October, 2019

En route to Berlin this past October, I stopped over in Manhattan for a couple days — just enough time to hit the NY Guggenheim, catch up with a couple of old friends, and stalk the streets in search of photographs.

The photographic pursuit wasn’t as fruitful as I’d hoped (is it ever?) and I didn’t come away with too many keepers. I was shooting with the Fuji x100f (armed with the 28mm conversion lens), and the Olympus XA (35mm rangefinder film camera) that I picked up back in September, so this collection contains both film and digital output from those couple days…

Coming Up For Air | Adventures in Film

In an effort to shoot more film, and integrate that effort into my daily routine — as well as sharpen my general photography skills — I picked up an original Olympus XA , a Japanese compact 35mm film camera in a clamshell housing from the late 1970s / early ‘80s. The XA’s small size, manual controls, and silent operation are what made it attractive to me as an every-day-carry film camera, and stealthy street shooter. It’s also nice for capturing candid images while hanging out with friends and family because it’s so low key (it almost looks like a toy) so it’s pretty disarming.

When I got it, back in mid September, I shot four test test rolls right away — three Kodak Tri-X 400 black and white, and one Kodak Color 200 — to make sure the camera was up to snuff (you never know with eBay buys). I’m pretty happy with the results. Despite getting used to using the camera, I was able to make a few photos I’m happy enough with to share…

From early to mid October, I was in New York City and then Berlin on vacation for a couple weeks (that trip, plus work/life stuff, explains my absence from posting to this site), and the XA was the perfect extra low-profile companion to the Fuji x100f. I came back from that trip with nine spent rolls of film (color and B&W) and about 700 digital shots on the Fuji, so that’s where my downtime has been going lately. More on all that as I continue to get my shit together from that trip.

Coincidentally, though, as I was getting ready to leave for NYC, I ran across a lost roll of Tri-X 400, which was knocking around in the bottom of an old bag. I had it developed right before I split town, and it turned out to be a bunch of shots I’d taken on a Yashica MicroTec 120 in NYC back in 2017. I don’t know what insanity lead me to forget about the roll entirely — I distinctly remember making a lot of these photos at the time, and looking forward to seeing them. Looking back now, I don’t know how I could have subconsciously just written off that roll. Anyway, I’m glad it turned up. Here are some keepers from that one…

More on NYC and Berlin in the coming weeks. I still need to get those rolls developed, and I’m working though all the digital stuff in the meantime. Stay tuned…

Recent Randoms

I’ve been cleaning out and consolidating my main photo archive recently — a process that’s yielded a handful of realizations and potentially interesting plans for future endeavors (more on all that later). During the process, I’ve managed to pull together a few photos that I shot over the summer, but (most of which) never made it out of the catalog and into the wild.

So here are a handful of photographs that I made over the last couple of months around California — in San Diego (unrelated to Comic Con; you can find those photos here), Carmel, Sonoma, and Oakland. Some weird stuff in this small batch…