When it comes to magic in photography, nothing can compare to watching a wet plate develop and clear or printing in the darkroom. But a close second is developing your slide film at home. After fretting about ruining slide film by developing it at home, I decided to go for it and put in some crucial rolls from Europe. If you force yourself to do it right the first time, develop something that matters! And when I pulled off those first two rolls, I was blown away! And while they looked ugly when wet, when dried, it was magic. The Unicolor Rapid E-6 kits makeRead More →

I had to go back into my archives to see if I ever posted anything directly related to my 2015 trip to Europe. And yes, the images did appear in several review posts, but I never made a great post about the trip. I don’t understand why! But it probably got caught up in my poorly managed posting schedule, which I only in the past couple of years got onto the right track and had some semblance of order. But either way, I think for this Friday, I get things in order and revisit a special trip of mine with some insights into that tripRead More →

This past Tuesday, the Ides of March, is also Expired Film Day. So I figured I would do a post about shooting expired film along with tips/tricks that I’ve come across with shooting old/expired film stocks. While I do a majority of my shooting with fresh film stock there is a certain level of fun and intrigue when shooting with expired film stock. 1. You can Shoot Film that is no longer available fresh. There are plenty of film stocks out there that is new that you can often make behave like well loved film stock in the past but it just never will beRead More →

“Are you going for the game?” The US Border services agent’s question jostled the brain slightly more awake. The coffee a couple of hours had helped but waking up at 4 am was certainly something I haven’t done in a while. Thankfully that wouldn’t hit me until the way home. I proceeded to explain that I was going to Ann Arbor for a photo walk; at least I didn’t say “What game?” (What shoo?). I then had to explain what a photo walk was. The day started at the local camera shop, Camera Mall who were wonderful hosts for not only opening early but providingRead More →