Mamiya C330

Santa Cruz Is Still My Happy Place

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It’s no secret that I got my start with photography in and around the Santa Cruz area in California. I think it is fair to say that sometimes a place can have just as much influence on a person’s artistic expression as anything else. Had I been born in New York or Paris or the wilderness of Australia my photography would be an entirely different thing today. The salty sea air and long stretches of highway hugging the Pacific Ocean were back in my youth an early source of inspiration and they very much still are today. Not much has changed there. It is still a place filled with the sound of sea birds and populated by people looking to ride a wave, write poetry in the sand, or just experience some silence while looking at the great expanding sea.

Photographed with a Sony A7iii.

At the beginning of this past summer I took a trip back to my roots, exploring the coastline up and down California Highway One (California State Highway 1 technically). It felt really good going back there and making images with the eyes I have today, as opposed to the eyes of my much younger self. I definitely see the world much differently now. A little less whimsical, and yet also little more optimistic if that makes any sense at all. I was also very fortunate that one of my favorite collaborators, Vivian Cove, loves the California coast as much as I do. Spending a day hiking among the rocks and cliffs, marching on dry sand, and dodging potential onlookers is a lot more exhausting than one might think.

Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Ilford Delta 120 film.

I won’t deny I was feeling slightly overwhelmed when these images were made. There is just so much to see and visit there and only so much film I can carry with me. I brought my digital camera with me as well as a backup for when my film stock ran dry but I wanted to capture the bulk of the work I did that day on film. After all, digital cameras didn’t really exist in any sort of quality form back when I was learning the ropes of photography in the California Bay Area studying at UC Santa Cruz and Foothill College. I don’t even think the first DSLR had been produced yet in any sort of form that was affordable to the average person.

Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Ilford Delta 120 film.

Every so often I contemplate moving back to the Santa Cruz area. It’s a place that has never really left me and continues to influence who I am as a person today. More than likely that will never happen and perhaps that is for the best. After all, it is far healthier to look to the future rather than linger forever in the past. Still, it is fun to visit sometimes and even more fun when I have the opportunity to make photographs while doing so.

Summer Has Yet To Begin

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The weather has been very dreary in the Pacific North West this year. Oddly, I’m not bothered by this in the slightest. When I read the weather reports of other parts of the United States hanging out in triple digit heat I can’t help but think I’ll gladly take a little bit of rain and overcast. Getting a little wet when making a photograph has never been a very big deal.

Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Ilford FP4 120 film.

I really enjoy the soft lighting of overcast weather. Sometimes it can make working with a slower speed film a little bit of a problem, but nothing a tripod or a steady hand can’t solve. Plus it gives me an excuse to work with the lens aperture wide open. On my Mamiya C330 TLR working at f/2.8 creates a tad bit of softness to the final image that can be enjoyable for portraits and figure studies.

Ultimately, whatever weather gets thrown my way, the bottom line is you have to work with it and do your best!

Old Houses in the Deserts of Los Angeles

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Several years ago I made a pilgrimage down to Southern California. I’ve always had a love and hate relationship with the larger metro area that people typically just lump into the label of the greater Los Angeles. On the one hand the traffic is monstrous and frustrating in the best of times. The sprawl and the row after row after row of generic apartment buildings and flat six lane roadways just make me sad.

At the same time, despite the massive population in the area, it is shockingly easy to find places where one can be isolated and alone. It is simply a fact that Los Angeles, and by extension, Southern California, is a place of contradictions.

Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Fomapan 100 medium format film.

I only brought one camera with me on this trip, my Mamiya C330 TLR. I also only brought one type of film with me, Fomapan 100. Predictably, the sun was incredibly bright and harsh the entire trip and I found myself working with the film at ISO 50 nearly the entire time. I’ve always found Fomapan to be a great film to pull down to a lower ISO. Diluting Rodinal just a little bit and developing with some slow agitation tends to yield very low contrast negatives, something I needed to counteract the harsh lighting.

Only an hour or so outside of the greater Los Angeles area there were a lot of abandoned houses, totally falling apart and sitting forgotten under the unforgiving sun. No trees around, no people, not even paved roads leading up to the front doors. It was eerie and quite and made for a great spot to expose this particular frame that has long been my favorite from the trip.