I recently sent an old SLR to a repair shop to be refurbished. It's an Olympus OM-1 that I received from an extremely generous reader. It needed a tune up, and the shop did that and more—replacing old parts and even adding a new focusing screen. As soon as I got the camera back, I loaded up a roll of film (or at least, a half roll) and started shooting. I'm still working on focusing—I've decided I'm bad at focusing everything other than a rangefinder—but I'm mostly pleased with my first set of photos. The initial batch were in black and white. I used Kodak Tri-X, with an orange filter attached when I needed a bit of drama.

These first photos are just snapshots from around Washington D.C.

I shot the rest of the roll while I was visiting Charlottesville, Virginia for a talk. I brought the orange filter along, hence the extremely dramatic photo of Alderman library. It's a bit much as far as effects go, but I wanted to give that filter a spin. This is also my first use of the 24mm lens I bought for the Olympus. It's not the sharpest lens I own, but it has a certain classic character that I like a lot.