I love wide shal­low stream beds. I also like dynam­ic and churn­ing creeks and rivers too, of course, but there is some­thing very mag­i­cal about see­ing those long runs of rock you get with the shal­low­er water.

This is from my first vis­it to Bea­man Park in April 2019. 

With record* low lev­els in Per­cy Priest, there were hun­dreds more yards of shore­line to explore in Decem­ber 2015. These were tak­en with that same won­der­ful bulk roll of T‑Max 400, long expired. I’ve been pulling rolls off of this for three years now — I’m like­ly get­ting close to the end, and it’s been great to put this film to use some twen­ty-five years after it was orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed to be processed.

*Who is going to look it up to fact check?

It had been a long time since I’d clam­bered into the woods, dirt under hands and scrap­ing knees, to make that metic­u­lous­ly framed pho­to. The more found-and-street pho­tog­ra­phy I do, the less of the com­pose-recom­pose-recom­pose-again process I had done. Last week­end was just such an oppor­tu­ni­ty. Walk­ing in Per­cy Warn­er Park there was up on a hill a large tree that had fall­en across anoth­er tree and, over time, twist­ed away and set­tled on the ground. In the future it will prob­a­bly be a nurse log for oth­er growth. Unfor­tu­nate­ly it was a good was up that hill and too far for any lens to get it from the road. It was a very cloudy day mak­ing hand­held shots tricky at best, and this being under cov­er of trees I had no choice except to scram­ble up car­ry­ing my tri­pod to set­up for the shot.

Shoot­ing with the Leica M3 at 35mm can be tricky. On the tech­ni­cal detail side, this was made with the Leica M3 with a 35mm f/2.8 lens. Expired T‑Max 400 shot at 200, f/11 at 1/2 sec­ond. With that 35mm lens there is an attach­ment to the viewfind­er to ensure prop­er fram­ing, but when the cam­era is low to the ground in an already uncom­fort­able sit­u­a­tion, it’s tough to ensure that the set­up is just the way you want it. With a lit­tle time and patience, that part came together.

Next was meter­ing and set­ting the shut­ter. Get­ting the expo­sure down is thank­ful­ly a breeze with my hand­held meter. Since it was a long expo­sure, a self-timer was going to be used. With the Leica there is a strange lit­tle half-winder on the front that you set, trip to start, and then when the winder fin­ish­es it fires the shut­ter. It takes a few tries to trust it — espe­cial­ly as the winder can run whether or not the expo­sure has already been tripped by the shut­ter button.

But when all was done, the pho­to was made and can now be shared.

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.

Car­ry­ing on with Part 2 of my Top 10 (ok 11) 2014 Film pho­tos, let’s dive into the next five!

Front Lawn. Natchez, March 2014. T‑Max 400, 35mm.

Side Street. Raleigh, June 2014. Por­tra 400, 120.

Free Col­ors. Raleigh, June 2014. Por­tra 400, 120.

Rain. Kanu­ga Con­fer­ence Cen­ter, June 2014. FP4 120.

The Bather. Cheek­wood, Decem­ber 2014. Acros 100, 35mm.

Review­ing an entire year of work is quite daunt­ing. You can pre­pare ahead of time and cat­a­log, rate, cri­tique, etc work all year long and still come out the oth­er side baf­fled and unsure why one piece was just SO GOOD. It’s pos­si­ble to try and mark opin­ions through­out the year, but even those can fall flat in review.

Or, you do what I do, and col­lect at the end of the year. With approx­i­mate­ly 500 frames of film shot in 2014, I did a once-over of every­thing and flagged some 60 as poten­tial best of’s. Then I print­ed 4x6 of each and did a fur­ther culling down to the Top 10.…but this Top 10 list goes to 11!

In no par­tic­u­lar order, let’s walk down mem­o­ry lane. We’ll five in this post, and five in Part 2. My favorite pho­to of the year will have its own post thereafter!

Peo­ple on Broad­way I. Nashville, Feb­ru­ary 2014. FP4 120.

Peo­ple on Broad­way II. Nashville, Feb­ru­ary 2014. FP4 120.

Square Books, Upstairs. Oxford, April 2014. NPS160 35mm.

Rachel Kate at The Under­ground I. Nashville, Novem­ber 2014. T‑Max 400 @ 1600, 35mm.

Rachel Kate at The Under­ground II. Nashville, Novem­ber 2014. T‑Max 400 @ 1600, 35mm

From a late-Decem­ber hike along the Fiery Giz­zard trail, tak­en with Neopan Acros 100 (shot at 200). Devel­oped in Ilfos­ol 3 1+14.

A some­what stren­u­ous trail, but well worth the effort. I did­n’t bring along a tri­pod so this was bal­anced on a con­ve­nient rock. Plen­ty of those around for using as makeshift sup­ports! The water was so clear, and so cold, it was amaz­ing. Some­times I still expect all water to be the same as that in south Mis­sis­sip­pi — silty, yel­low and so thick you lose your hand three inch­es under. This was the total oppo­site and just beautiful.

There are more pho­tos to come off this last roll of the year, but I had to go on and post this one (which may be my favorite from the walk).

One a recent short-notice trip to the Mis­sis­sip­pi Gulf Coast I was with­out any cam­era but my cell phone (LG G2). There was one last bloom on my fam­i­ly’s back­yard hibis­cus, a bril­liant pink with orange and yel­low pollen. But the chance to explore the black and white capa­bil­i­ties of the tool du jour called so strong­ly, and I’m tak­en with the results.

Tak­en with the default Cam­era appli­ca­tion, and mod­i­fied in the Android Pho­to­shop app, but just crop­ping and lev­els. Amaz­ing what portable elec­tron­ics can do these days.