oceanfront (on film)

I almost always have two cameras on me — one film, one digital. I shared the digital photos from my Virginia Beach visit last week. Here are the film, taking on a Yashica Mat 124G medium format camera with Ilford XP2 Super film. I think black and white is perfect for the beach on a winter morning — it captures the starkness of the environment. Also, these aren’t just random shots; they are in a sequence. A little journey, so to speak.

lobby day

I went to the big pro-gun protest in Richmond on Monday. I wrote about it in the context of the history of gun rights, and I also took pictures. Some of those photos are on film and I’ll share them once developed and scanned. But others were digital and I can share them now. These were taken outside the capitol grounds, on the streets and corners that were crowded with gun enthusiasts, most of them carrying weapons.

For most of the time I was there, I had my Yashica Mat 124G around my neck, and it was interesting (and funny) just how many attendees recognized the camera and wanted to chat about my photography gear. As someone very invested in cameras as tools and aesthetic objects, I can see the overlap between gun enthusiasm and camera enthusiasm, and in a weird way, talking to these guys about my camera helped me better understand their attachment to their guns.

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Update! I shot a roll of film during the event finally developed and scanned it. Here are those shots, which I like quite a bit.

drayton hall

From Wikipedia:

Drayton Hall is an 18th-century plantation located on the Ashley River about 15 miles northwest of Charleston, South Carolina, and directly across the Ashley River from North Charleston, west of the Ashley in the Lowcountry. An outstanding example of Palladian architecture in North America and the only plantation house on the Ashley River to survive intact through both the Revolutionary and Civil wars, it is a National Historic Landmark.

And here’s a little more from the Drayton Hall foundation website:

For more than 250 years, Drayton Hall has stood witness to the American South. Among the best and most complete examples of Southern colonial life open to the public today, the property holds a vital educational responsibility. It is also an active archaeological site with an extensive museum collection of rare 18th- and 19th-century objects and artifacts.

As far as South Carolina plantation tours go, this one is pretty decent.