road trip – Front Porch Coffee

photography, stories

Hello, fairbanks

The air here smells like pine trees and wildflowers.

Thanks for the loaf of bread, mom. Love you :-)

Denali didn't come out of her clouds, but it was a magnificent vista nonetheless — Denali didn’t come out of her clouds, but it was a magnificent vista nonetheless

Wet tarmac, sweet alaskan air, mountains, and the big beautiful tre--S*** THERE IS A SEMI TRUCK COMING BEHIND ME GET OUTTA THE ROAD — Wet tarmac, sweet alaskan air, mountains, and the beautiful arctic fores–S*** THERE IS A SEMI TRUCK COMING BEHIND ME GET OUTTA THE ROAD

photography

Long and pretty drive

Great, long and beautiful drive, even better: shared with mom.

Just in case it may not show through well in the one photo with the thumbs up, the thumbs up is actually for 4wd, not the icy road. Um.. on second thought it is for the icy road too. So it should’ve been a double thumbs up. my bad.

Also, review of the 1990 Jeep Cherokee Sport: really, really really cool and fun. Mileage, not terrible but not too hot either.

photography

This one time

This one time mom and I drove up to Alaska, and the guy in town who develops c-41 had old chemicals, the shots turned out bluer than the blues, and I even had to pull the big lever to put the jeep in 4wd a few times (so, soooooo satisfying)

other

Going again

Two weeks at home in Seattle and now off to live and work in Alaska. I don’t think my head’s around it, maybe only just a tiny bit, and that’s enough for now.

Road trip, 1990 Jeep, mom and me doing driving shifts, loaded up with clothing and food and camping gear and books, my pair of boots I got in 9th grade ($25, they still fit great), one camera and lens and lots of bw film and a bit of color film and dark room chemicals.

photography

Road trip: part II

part II:

Nikon F3; Zeiss Planar 50/1.4 and Dad’s Nikkor 28/3.5 (except for a few shots I took with an E series 50/1.8); no photoshop.

(part I is here: http://wp.me/p11VMI-j0)

Roll 1: Kodak Gold 100
I have previously dissed on Kodak film. It’s for chumps? Real camera nerds use Ilford for black and white, and pro-grade Fuji for color, right? Well, this roll saved the day. I had decided to bring one roll of film–and absentmindedly grabbed an already-exposed roll. Smooth move dave, smooth move. As the dice fell, a nearby gift/souvenir shop just happened to have film. What film was it? Kodak Gold 100. Kodak, I apologize; your film is everywhere, you rock.

Roll 2: Fuji Pro 160S
I like this film. Nothing really super crazy, just good color and grain.

Roll 3: Fuji Sensia 100
The jury didn’t even have to go out on this one: I <3 slide film. It is beautiful. If I had to take a camera, lens and two films for the rest of my life, it’d be the F3, a 35/1.4, and Sensia 200 (or maybe the Kodak slide film, I haven’t tried it yet) and Ilford HP5+. Done deal. Actually that doesn’t sound like a half bad plan anyways…

Roll 4: Fuji Superia 200 (another one of the old rolls of film from pops)
Nothing too crazy here, same reddish vintage-looking hues from the 7-year aged film. This roll was halfway used up when we left, so it had only a few trip shots worth posting here. Why call it roll 4? Because I didn’t realize until a moment ago that it was the first, not last, roll I took on the trip; water under the bridge.

Without further ado, here they are:

49740016-9 — roll 1 #10. Chips and salsa and hummus and apple pie and coffee, at the top of a 3.2 mile hike. All baked by scratch at the tea house up there, baking supplies helicoptered in once per season, fresh supplies hiked in weekly. The staff (a family) lives there five days per week. Yes, awesome.

49740009-6 — #15. This view is even better while having the aforementioned chips and salsa and hummus and pie and coffee.

49760024-11 — roll 2 #2. A train boiler blew back in the day, sending this piece (over 500 lbs) on it's way to where it sits now. The railroad tracks are 130 meters away. Egads.

49760021-8 — #5. Awesome man riding his bike through the rockies with a guitar.

46370007-7 — #7. This was taken with a prime lens, a 50 for that matter...this required me to get closer to a nasty spider than I like to get to spiders. Especially the nasty ones.

46370010-8 — #10 Up and to the right, you can see some of a glacier. Once and a while pieces would calve off and their thunder would roll down the valley. Awesome.

46370018-10 — #18. Pops sacking a few sweet macro shots. Mom is a total shutter bug, too. Go figure.

46370037-14 — #37. Slide film is awesome.

..and that’s it. It was a great* trip.

*”great” is overused. I mean great, actually great.

photography

Road trip: part I

Rocky Mountains in Canada, 9 days.
—

part I:
Nikon D200; Zeiss Planar 50/1.4 and Dad’s Nikkor 28/3.5. The 28 is pre-AI, which made for some trickiness, but with some creativity it’s nothing insurmountable. By miles and miles this takes the pie, cake and tart in the biggest-post-on-dave’s-blog competition, and will likely keep those respective desserts for a long time. No Photoshop.
—

part II:

Nikon F3; same two lenses (except for a few shots I took with an E series 50/1.8).

ETA: ~2 weeks. No Photoshop.
—

Thoughts:

Shooting scenery with a 75 is really interesting–I liked it, but the few times I used the Zeiss on my film camera, seeing that pretty 50mm perspective through the viewfinder was a breath of fresh air. Shooting so many photos of such variety as a road trip gives gave me lots to think about in the realm of lenses. I think a 18-70 (which, with sensor crop, is actually 27-105) would be an absolutely stellar all-rounder as long as it’s reasonably fast. The 18-200ish lenses are pretty cool, but that just seems like trying to do too much.

#115 (third memory card; the thumbs up is for Dave H.)

#293 (US-Canada border. Back in the good old US of A baby!)

#336 (out of order because it perfectly follows the previous shot. Wave on, Old Glory)

#574 (this one ought to be a bit bigger than the others I believe)

#665 Lest there be misunderstanding, the road trip wasn't taken in this truck. That said, it is very high up on my bucket list to take a road trip in an old vehicle that has lots and lots of character. I may after I finish work for the summer. Ride to Haida Gwaii from WA state on a thirty-year-old Suzuki? Yes, maybe.

It was a great trip; I do hope the 53 photos were enjoyable.