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.
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.
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.
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.
We were leaving a friend's house and I saw this old Volvo in a parking lot. I had my camera and one exposure to spare, so I took a photo. I love the tonality of this show, and there's something about it and the shallow depth of field that gives it a vintage look.
I forget that these exist until I see them; relics of the not-so-distant past when people didn't carry mobile phones, and needed a way to contact someone away from home. This phone is near the National Building Museum in Washington D.C., on the 5th Street side. I didn't notice it—my wife did. But once she pointed it out, I had to take a photo.
These two shots are the best photos from a roll of film I shot at the end of November, when I attempted to do a few long exposures. All this means is that the time allotted for capturing the image was greater than a second.
In the case of the first photo, the exposure took about 20 seconds, with the camera mounted on a tripod and the shutter attached to a release cable. In the case of the second, which took me two tries to get right, the exposure was 1 minute and 35 seconds.
I used a Fuji GW670 rangefinder and Kodak Tri-X for these photos. The Tri-X was pushed 2 stops to 1600, which accounts for some of the extra graininess.
I took these photos a few months ago, on two separate walks through D.C. I usually approach people when I want to take their picture, but in this case, they walked up to me. We chatted about my camera—the gentleman in the second photo sold cameras at an outdoor stand—and I snapped a picture before I left.
I used one of my medium format Fuji rangefinders—6x7 negatives—and my usual black and white film, Tri-X. Both were exposed for the shadows cast by their hats, which means the full frame was overexposed by about two stops. The tonality and three-dimensionality of the photos is why I greatly prefer shooting medium format to 35mm.
I have this ambition of shooting even more portraits next year, but we'll see if I can continue to power through aversion to approaching strangers.
These photos are from the first week of November up until the election. I spent most of that time in North Carolina, covering the final leg of the Clinton campaign and criss-crossing the state. It was exhausting, but a lot of fun. I didn't take as many photos as I would have liked, I took some, and here are the few that I liked.
This guy was selling Clinton gear for everyone to enjoy.
And this was his table of gear.
I passed this garage, and this car body, on my way to Raleigh.
A giant American flag from a Clinton rally.
On election night, I was at CBS News in New York City. These are a few shots from the green room.
A decorative hat of campaign buttons and stickers.
Frank Luntz, on the phone.
These next few photos are from the day and night after the election. Looking at their composition and lighting, I think they reflect my mood pretty well.
Walk-in's welcomed.
Going down to the subway.
I think, if I ever make a print of this photo, I will call it "alone."
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.
