Vis­it to Cleve­land for the Code for Amer­i­ca Brigade Con­gress.

San Fran­cis­co, June 2016. Ilford FP4+ and HP5+ in Leica M3

Every few months I trav­el to Raleigh, North Car­oli­na and on these vis­its I try to explore down­town a lit­tle bit. This month I had anoth­er trip and took my Leica M3 and my (new to me) Mamiya C330. These are some of my favorites from three ses­sions — one late after­noon and one night­time walk with the M3, and one mid­day with the C330. The M3 had a roll of expired 400UC and the Mamiya was loaded with Ultra­fine Extreme 400.

I’ve got­ten to a pret­ty com­fort­able place with the Leica, but the C330 is still very for­eign to me. In fact, on three of my images the lens did­n’t acti­vate — no idea what I did wrong there. I had switched out the 80mm 2.8 for a 180mm 4.5 and some­how did­n’t set it up cor­rect­ly. Will read more and bet­ter luck next time. Big thank you to Karl Abbott for the roll of Ultra­fine — it turned out great in a Microphen stock dev!

I am now the proud own­er of a Leica M3 and three lens­es (50mm f/2 DR, 35mm f/2.8 and 90mm f/4). And a MR meter, but no bat­tery for it (yet!). And I am grow­ing very, very fond of the camera.

How­ev­er, it is an uphill climb. The first ses­sion with it, when I was test­ing it out before pur­chase, was a frus­trat­ing mix of fits and starts. Remem­ber the first (and sec­ond, third and fourth) time you tried to dri­ve stan­dard? But do you also remem­ber the first time you real­ly were able to get a smooth take­off and run through the gears? The start of the roll was fum­bling and awk­ward, but by the end of my sec­ond ses­sion I felt like I could at least get the car around the block. I’m look­ing for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to work with this gear — espe­cial­ly next week when I’m in Vancouver! 

The pho­tos below were tak­en at Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty around Ben­ton Chapel.

All the above were done with the 50mm and 35mm lens­es, with HP5+ shot at 400 and devel­oped in Ilfos­ol 3 1:14 dilution.

Every first Fri­day of month these days Franklin hosts a walk­ing art fes­ti­val down­town for perusal and fun. Below are some favorites from my walk around the fes­ti­val for May 2015.

One of my favorite places for a bril­liant cup of cof­fee is Barista Par­lor. The oth­er day there were tremen­dous storms blow­ing through and after watch­ing from inside I went to take a walk around the block. It’s an old neigh­bor­hood with lots of charm and beau­ty. These are images from a roll of Neopan Acros 100 (shot at 400) shot on my A‑1.

Sycamore Falls is a great hike close to Sewa­nee. Takes less than an hour to make it to the falls (although there are plen­ty of small­er, short­er water fea­tures and bridges along the way so stop­ping often should be expect­ed). Cheek­wood is a well-known estate that’s been con­vert­ed into a muse­um and pub­lic (although you have to buy a ticket/pass to go) grounds. The pho­tos above came from being around the house itself; here is anoth­er set from else­where on the grounds. All from a 36 count end of the year roll of Neopan Acros 100.