France on Film
On a recent trip to France, I took my film camera and two lenses, a 35mm and a 50mm. That’s it. I bought some slow-speed, high-resolution black and white film in Paris and used that on the trip. I did also use my phone for some snapshots in color, but photographed all the scenes I […]
Rewards of Getting Out
I’ve gone to Lovers Point Park in Pacific Grove with my camera many times. It’s a photogenic spot with waves breaking on complex rock formations, a small swimming beach, surfers, and a lawn with twisted trees. Even if I don’t come across any unusual subjects, it’s worth a visit. This past visit, though, I did […]
Three “Portraits”
All three of these are portraits, more or less. The first is an environmental portrait of a fellow photographer at the seashore in Pacific Grove. Clearly a portrait, but he’s relatively small in the frame. This was taken with my medium-format film camera. This is a street portrait of two women selling cosmetics at an […]
R-Evolution Statue at Night
More than once, I’ve photographed the R-Evolution statue on the Embarcadero in front of the Ferry Building during the day. It’s a striking work of public art. I read that it’s illuminated at night, so I went into San Francisco on Saturday night well before nightfall to see what it looks like after dark. I […]
Skipping the Parade
I’ve photographed the Pride Parade in San Francisco many times, so I skipped it this year. But late in the afternoon, I decided to go into the city to do some street photography. The parade was long over, and most of the crowd was gone. I wandered around City Center with my film camera and […]
Unposed Portraits
I like to photograph my granddaughters, but asking them to pose is almost always a mistake. They’re too young to understand the concept of posing, so the posed portraits I get aren’t what I’m looking for. My family was at a cabin recently where there was a covered porch with good light and a plain […]
Recent Street Portraiture
I don’t take a lot of street portraits, so accumulating enough for a post takes some time. Here are several recent ones, all shot on film. This is Mateo, who commented on my camera, and we talked photography for a few minutes. I placed him in front of this plain background. I found him a […]
SF Street Photography on Film
Because I’m shooting film much more than digital of late, I took my film camera into San Francisco a week ago and took photos at a Chinatown street fair, on Market Street, and around Yerba Buena Center. It was a different experience from shooting digital, mainly because, unlike with digital, there’s no immediate feedback: I […]
Choosing Limitations
When I decided to take my film camera to the “We Fight Back” march in San Francisco on January 19 in San Francisco, I got to experience the limitations photojournalists faced back in the film era. No autofocus. No auto exposure. One focal length at a time with primes. No burst mode. No SD card […]
Two Cameras, Two Looks
Because I want to end up with silver gelatin, black-and-white prints that I do myself in the darkroom, I’ve begun shooting film alongside digital when I do a portrait session. I used both cameras when I photographed a friend recently at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Getting images that are in sharp […]