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Venturing into Film

I’m constantly trying to find ways of making myself a better photographer. From reading on techniques to watching videos on composition, I try to constantly improve when I’m not behind a camera. I gave a lot of thought to this as I have tried to return to photography after a several year hiatus.

It is this spirit that led me to film. And so, several weeks ago, I was gifted a mint condition Pentax K1000 SE. I actually already had some Pentax lenses, I picked them up on eBay along with an adapter to mount on my mirrorless, so I was already set to go.

While I’m certainly not abandoning digital in some quest to rediscover film (though I have enormous respect for those who do), I am hoping it will make me a more conscious and patient photographer. I have found, over the last couple weeks of film photography, that with a very limited number of shots to take I was far more diligent about the photos I would take - except for the couple times I forgot to set the ISO when I put in a new roll of film.

I think it was that diligence that after two rolls while walking through the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens I got few photos that I wouldn’t share here - probably helped that it was also a beautiful day with beautiful fall colors. While I’m not likely to abandon digital as my primary photography medium, I am looking forward to many many more rolls of film in the future.

Windy Days in Flushing

Today we are facing a bit of a Nor’Easter so there will be no photography this weekend. I did get out last weekend to Flushing Meadows for a bit of photography. It was an incredibly windy day but beautiful - though the clouds did move in later in the morning.

With the clouds moving quickly, I decided to do some long exposure shots around the park. You can see from the meadow photos just how strong the wind was. The last photo especially, the camera got caught by the wind and resettled in a new position. I don’t usually post photos that aren’t great but I kind of like the effect.

Hopefully next week will be a little nicer.

Catskills

This is the first same day blog I’ve done, so everything is fresh off the sensor. Today I spent the day up in the Catskills enjoying some fresh air and nature. It’s always a pleasure to get out of the city and away from the hustle. While the day was far from perfect - it was overcast for most the day - but I got a couple good photos.

I will say there was just so much to do and see in the Catskills I didn’t even scratch the surface. Which almost certainly means many more trips to see more. I’ve been dying to try some astrophotography and it seems like there are some perfect sites up there that would be perfectly dark.

I’m going to keep it short for now, as it’s been a long day that started around 5am, so I’ll let everyone just enjoy the photos.

Walk in the Park

I had the pleasure yesterday of doing some backup photography for a run on Randall’s Island - a relatively large recreational island situated between Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan.

What you might notice about my page is that people is not something that I typically take photos of and certainly not action shots. As such I don’t really have the equipment to do this type of photography - I have a series of primes, more than half of which are manual focus. As you might imagine, shooting folks running with a manual lens is not easy. However, I was just played backup to another photographer so it wasn’t a huge issue.

And of course I got a couple keepers:

I did get a chance to do some other photography while I was out there, as the island has been nicely maintained and they have a great variety of plants and flowers. So as I was walking back from taking photos of the runners, I took a couple shots for myself.

You can see the results below:

That’s it for now. Hopefully, the weather will get a little less grey here and photos of fall will begin to pop up on this blog.

Till next time.