Charlottesville Walk-around

This post is pretty self-explanatory. While in Charlottesville last month, I took a walk around the town proper with my wife and father-in law. I had my camera, and snapped photos of anything that looked even a little interesting. I should say that the mural in the first photo is very good and very unusual—it's one of just a handful of genuine murals I've seen in town. Obviously it's quite colorful in real life, but I like how it looks in greyscale. The second set of street art is near downtown, and is easy to spot if you ever make your way to Champion Brewery (you should). At this point in the month, I was still using the Olympus OM-1, and still shooting a roll of Ilford Delta 400.

Side 1. 

Side 2. 

This is underneath an abandoned coal tower that I kind of like. 

Nice symmetry.

This was really hard to frame with the 24mm and I'm not even sure I accomplished what I was going for. 

Clothes line. 

Some kind of weird figurine. 

This is one of those photos I kind of just took to take and I actually really like it.

Should be familiar to anyone who goes to the Downtown Mall. 

Ah, classic Charlottesville. 

Fort Lincoln Cemetery

Not long ago I was running errands in NE Washington and used the occasion to drive through Fort Lincoln Cemetery, which sits just outside the city in Brentwood, Maryland. Other than this statue of Lincoln, it doesn't have much in the way of statuary. Still, it's a beautiful area, with gardens and memorials throughout. It takes its name from the fact that it was a Civil War-era fort, constructed in 1861 for the defense of Washington.

I had an Olympus OM-1 with me, loaded with Fuji Provia 100f transparency film and attached to a 35mm lens.

Graveyard of Trucks

What I love about photography, as a hobby, is that it has pushed me to explore my surroundings. At home, in DC, that means exploring every inch of the city in an effort to find interesting buildings, hidden gems, and otherwise see people live their lives. in my other home, Charlottesville, that means exploring the whole of central Virginia.

To that end, over holiday break, I went with my wife and in-laws to a truck graveyard near Columbia, Virginia; an aging town, long past it's former glory. The graveyard itself sits on a field about 20 minutes from town, and is owned part of an actual trucking company, which rents out tractor trailers for use. There is no admission, but you do have to contact the owners and ask permission to visit. we did that, and brought some beer as a "thank you" for letting us take pictures.

I brought two cameras. The first, a fixed-lens, medium format rangefinder, is equipped with a "normal lens" that gives you a perspective roughly equivalent to what you see. The second was an Olympus OM-1 with a 24mm lens, for an ultra-wide perspective. The rangefinder had a roll of Kodak Porta 400, with 10 exposures. And I was finishing a roll of Ilford Delta 400 in the Olympus. Sunset was approaching as we got there, so we were racing against time a bit for photos, but I think the results were great.

With my shots, I tried to capture as much as the graveyard as I could, with an emphasis on color. I love the way the rust and decay looks, how it interacts with light, how it looks in its surroundings. Also, every so often, I think about giving up medium format, and then I look at the sharpness and tonality of these shots and I immediately think—no way.

Anywho, I hope you like these shots. Let me know what you think.

New Year's Day—2017

I went to a friend's house for New Year's Day, where we indulged in food and alcohol for the better part of the afternoon and evening. I brought my digital camera (a Fuji X100T) and my Polaroid Spectra, loaded with some film. I didn't take a lot of photos, but the ones I did, I liked. Here are the digital photos, shot using a flash, and edited in VSCO for iOS. The subjects are dogs and children, which is how these things go.

Here are the digital photos!

And here is what I shot on my Polaroid Spectra, using Impossible Project film.

Footprints

I took exactly one photo on my digital camera when we were in California this past month. It was on the beach. I like it quite a bit. Edited in VSCO for iOS.

Admonition

I walk, bike, or run by this high school all the time, but this is the first time I've taken a photo of its sign. Shot digitally with a Fuji X100T, and edited in VSCO for iOS.

Charleston

I went down to Charleston, South Carolina for Thanksgiving, to visit family. I brought a camera and some film for the day after, when I took a nice walk around downtown. These are the photos I took. If you're familiar with the city, you'll see some recognizable places. And then there are the houses and such that caught my eye, for whatever reason.

Miscellaneous

These are the "leftover" photos from a few of the rolls I shot this past November. There's no particular theme, just scenes or objects that caught my eye. All are from around D.C., and all involve the same combination of camera and film that mark photos in earlier posts.

Sculpture Garden

When I took these photos, I hadn't walked through the sculpture garden at the Hirschorn in more than a year. The first two photos reflect the installations that caught my eye. The final is a shot of the Hirschorn itself, or at least, a part of it.

New Museum

This is a bit of a profile shot of the National Museum of African American History. I took it shortly after the election, during a long walk on the National Mall. One of these days, I'll take that same walk with a wide-angle lens, so I can get a different perspective on the building. For now, I think this shot shows the scale and beauty of the museum. As usual, I used a 6x7 rangefinder and Kodak Tri-X 400, developed by my lab.