Also, I said this in the post for 2023 but I’m often quite bad at keeping up with this site. And honestly I still feel that idea of wanting to do more, write more. But also this past year I’ve also given myself more grace to not do things I don’t want to do. So I may not write as many posts and that’s ok. Ultimately this really is a personal space that happens to also have pictures.

But let’s talk about what’s coming up. I’m posting this about halfway into April and there are a couple of reasons for that. At work, I’ve been super busy and honestly I haven’t had the energy or motivation to get more done here. But more excitingly, I’m rewriting this site! I originally set up this site as a simple blog just to get it going and I did very little customization to it. Honestly, I’ve never loved how simplistic it is and I’ve never loved that it’s so text focused from the home page. As a result, I wanted to spend some time both learning some new technologies and also rethinking and rewriting this site into something that is both visual and text oriented. I probably won’t be done until mid May and there won’t be any other posts until I’m finished but I want to write this down as a way to commit myself to it. I’ve already started but I really just need to buckle down and do the actual interesting bits. At the end of this rewrite, I want to make the template open for use and maybe make a couple other versions in different technologies, but we’ll see about that last bit. As a part of this process I’ll make sure to add the entire backlog of posts so it maintains its history.

Anyways, enough site talk. This is mostly a photography thoughts site so I want to talk about my photography in 2024. Considering it’s already April, I can talk about what I’ve already been focused on and what I want to focus on more for the rest of the year as well.

So far in 2024, I’ve been focusing more on 3 subject compositions. Obviously, not every band or musical act has 3 or more members in it, but when possible I’ve been trying to understand those dynamics more intuitively. Additionally, I’ve said in the past that I naturally bias towards showing the entirety of a person in a frame. I’ve been pushing myself to be more ok with just parts of people. This allows for more flexibility in what I am able to display and should overall be beneficial to my photography.

Another focus has been on more outdoor photography. 2022 focused on “spaces between” and I want to continue doing more of that. But additionally, I want to work landscape photography and macro photography into that. I also want to spend some time doing explicit portrait photography outside with strangers. I’m a naturally pretty shy person but I want to push myself to interact more, not just with my environment but the people in them.

I also want to briefly mention that picture I pointed out in “The 36”. I want to explore mundanity a bit more. What kind of twists can I put into generally mundane pictures and scenes? In that picture, it uses rotation in a distinct way to create a visual obscurity that isn’t necessarily immediately obvious but works to transform the image when noticed. What other possibilities are available here? In that picture, it’s very simply set and requires some very specific conditions. What are those and where else can I stretch things?

Lastly, and I’ve probably also mentioned this here and there, I want to focus on single subject photography. With just one subject, what can I interact with in the background to make exciting stories and pictures? Part of this will probably go with those portraits, but it’s something I think about from time to time when I’m at a show that has an artist on their own. How can I create a powerful and exciting story? As a photographer focused on film photography, I’m not likely to, nor am I aiming to, get the absolute sharpest pictures. So what and where do I create excitement and power?

I’ve already actually taken a lot of pictures in 2024 and I want to talk about a good number of them. But again I’ll wait to get to those until after I get this site rewritten and set up. That’s it for now and I’ll be back hopefully pretty shortly.

2023 was a kind of crazy year. As I mentioned in the SXSW post, I saw a lot of acts there. But even so, I saw over twice as many artists than in 2022. While the playlist for 2023 has 115 songs in it, there are actually a few more that weren’t added. Some of this is due to artists not having their music on Spotify and some of it is due to ensemble work that I didn’t duplicate.

I ended up seeing sets by just over 100 distinct artists and many of those were Austin based. The year was also a much more diverse spread across genres. 2022 was diverse for sure, but it missed a lot of genres that 2023 explored either just once or more deeply.

The genre’s that I would say were most apparently new to 2023 were classical and punk. Classical music, in the general sense and not the specific era, is one of those genres I grew up with but haven’t meaningfully interacted with as a grown up. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it in a previous post but I grew up playing cello and, as a result, classical music is pretty central to my musical understanding. That said, I haven’t really listened to any chamber ensembles, like Fuse, or orchestras like the Sydney Symphony orchestra since college.

If classical represents tradition and sophistication, punk represents something raw and something counter traditional. It’s interesting then that punk became a larger amount of the live music I went to see last year. I think a big part of this is from seeing Die Spitz at the end of last year. It really opened me up to it as a different experience and a vibrant community. Austin has a growing and strong punk scene. It’s largely pushed forward by younger musicians who are very much trying to figure out their sound while paying homage to older acts.

That said, while I like the energy and raucousness of punk crowds, metal’s still a bit much for me. I mentioned it a bit in a previous post, but there’s still a limit for me and that’s just how it is.

Now it’s time for some shout outs. The act I saw the most often was Urban Heat. I ended up seeing them 5 times over the course of 2023 in addition to seeing them at the end of 2022. They have such a dynamic show that I never once regretted seeing them. That said, it was a bit accidental that I ended up seeing them so many times. I saw them first in January during Free Week intentionally. Next in February I saw them because I wanted to try out the Canon Demi S before SXSW and they were just the show I ended up at. After that, I saw them during SXSW because I couldn’t get into a different show during that time slot. Then I saw them opening for Vision Video in August which was a really fun and packed show. And then I once again saw them open for a Mobley show. I was always going to go to that Mobley show but it was fun to see them one more time.

The artist I listened to the most last year was Lena Luca. I’ve talked about her and her music a few times this year and I ended up seeing her live 4 times in 2023.

The act that surprised me the most was Me Nd Adam. Honestly going into their first show in July I didn’t know who they were. I was going to go see Foxtales and KVN who were opening for them. But they were really fun and an exciting live act. So much so I went to see them again at the end of the year.

The most interesting set of shows I went to was the David Slowing show with Xuiqen, Housekeys, and Botany. I mentioned it before but the quadraphonic sound setup was such a fun and interactive space to listen to music in.

Those are all mostly Austin or close by artists so I want to make sure I spend some time focused on non Austin and international artists too.

In that vein I want to shout out Hope D who were so fun to go see live at SXSW. They have such a fun and cozy vibe and I listened to them a lot both before and afterwards.

N’famady Kouyaté and Ladaniva were probably the two acts that broadened my musical listening the most. N’famady Kouyaté through introduced me to more West African musical styles while Ladaniva did a similar thing with Armenian and a subset of French music.

Interestingly, due to how Spotify recommends stuff, Ladaniva also led me to Basque and Occitan music. While I haven’t seen any Basque or Occitan music live yet, I’d really love to. Both languages are quite interesting and distinct and it’s definitely on my list now in a way that it wouldn’t be previously.

For some reason, I felt like I went to see significantly more Austin based artists than I did. I ended up seeing somewhere around 73 sets by Austin based artists. Which ends up around a 2:1 split of Austin to non Austin. This is more than in 2022 but I thought it’d be more.

One last thing to mention about 2023 is that there are a lot more duplicates in 2023 than 2022. Part of this is because I just chose to see more music. A big part of how I learn about more musical acts is by seeing ones I know and listening to their openers or if they’re the openers by listening to who they’re opening for. Some fun examples here are Swimwear Department who opened for Big Bill. Or as I mentioned earlier, Me Nd Adam, who had Foxtales and KVN open for them.

As with in 2022, I made a playlist which can be found here. With that let’s go on to the 36.

Unlike last year where I did a long explanation of “The 36”, I just want to jump into it. If you want to read about what this is and what I thought of 2022 feel free to go back to that post.

Well, the first thing to note is that this edition of “The 36” doesn’t have 36 pictures in it. It has 39! There are 39 pictures because I wanted to give a bit of love to the half frame photography I did in 2023. As a result, there are still 36 “frames”, 3 of which are composed of half frames. 36 + 3 = 39.

The other thing to note is that it’s extremely live music dominated. And while my life overall may not have been entirely focused around live music in 2023, my photography very much was.

That said, I really wanted to cover the range of pictures I took and what I was interested in. 2023 had a strong focus on the A/B split image I’ve been talking about all of 2023. As a result, it pops up quite prominently throughout this edition of “The 36”. But I was also interested in other things. For example, the 2 double exposures of Lena Luca and Elise Trouw on the right side.

What’s also fun to note are the unexpected pictures here. There’s a picture from that really odd Lomochrome Turquoise roll in the top right (2nd from the right). There’s also that bizarre Housekeys/David Slowing “multiple exposure” that wasn’t actually meant to be one.

While art and the Blanton didn’t feature much in 2023’s posts, I wanted to highlight that they continue to be important to me and to my photography. In the middle of this edition of “The 36” there are two pictures taken at the Blanton. The “We belong here” with the Capitol in the background is a very fun and meaningful picture to me. While that sign is not up at the moment of my writing this, I find that sign to be one of the most meaningful and inclusive pieces of art that the Blanton owns and is one I’m always looking for when it isn’t there. To its top right is a piece by Gabriel Dawe that permanently hangs in the new welcome center at the Blanton. It had just been opened up to the public a month or two before I took that picture and is a glorious piece to welcome you to the Blanton.

Above that are the bird cages from Sydney, shot in CineStill 50d. While CineStill as a company had a bit of a weird year, they had sent a bunch of cease and desists over the usage of 800T, one of their other film stocks rated for tungsten based lighting, I still appreciated that specific roll for its unique look and feel.

The upper right is largely landscape photography from my trip out to New Mexico. It’s important to me because it really broadened my vision in regards to telephoto photography. I really want to do more with that in 2024 because I feel like there’s a lot more space for me to explore there.

With all that said, I want to talk about the structure of this edition of “The 36”. As with 2022’s version, I wanted to grab a picture or two from every roll I shot. This didn’t quite end up happening as there are no medium format pictures here. Medium format’s something I really need to spend more time with and I’m not fully comfortable putting it as a part of this. It also doesn’t fit ergonomically. The half frame pictures can be doubled into a same shaped frame as the others but the square format of the Yashica Mat 124G just doesn’t fit the same. So I’ll have to figure out what I want to do with those later.

Anyways, including medium format and half frame, I shot 26 rolls of film, twice as much as in 2022. 3 of those were medium format, leaving 23 rolls of film represented in this collage. Only one roll has 3 pictures from it. That roll is the 6th roll of Portra 800 which has the sunset Milky Way picture, the Housekeys picture, and the silhouetted blue Lena Luca picture coming from it.

Speaking of Lena Luca, she is one of a few artists that are represented twice. The others are Shooks with both a half frame and full frame in the first row and HOT///CAKES with a pair on the left edge. Interestingly, none of those pairs are from the same roll of film, each pair spans two different rolls of film.

Overall, this edition of “The 36” is largely organized in two ways. There’s the non live music photography which goes from the center to the top right. And there’s the live music which is largely color oriented. It’s organized with yellows and reds in the top left, sweeping around to blues and purples in the bottom right. The bottom right also includes more light and silhouette focused pictures and the 2 double exposures + the weird “multiple exposure”.

When comparing 2022 and 2023, 2023 is a much denser collage. My photography in 2023 was significantly more focused on balancing density and readability than 2022 when I was more focused on general mechanics and rough ideas. That said, I think 2022 was more dynamic in its use of light and motion.

As a result, while I do think that I made a lot of progress in terms of how I think about and approach my photography I also think there’s a lot of room to be more free with it. Not every picture needs to be shoehorned into a particular image’s box that I’m aiming to do.

In 2022 I described the idea of the A/B split image as a part of my going through the making of and describing of “The 36”. So what is the picture for 2023 that points me forward? Arguably the most visually distinct picture of 2023’s “The 36” is the one I put right in the middle. The half frame picture of me taking a picture while swinging my arm. It’s interesting in that it kind of doesn’t look interesting and I want to explore that a bit more. I’ll go over my thoughts on where I want to go with 2024 in the new year post, but suffice it to say that while 2023 focused super heavily on live music I don’t really want to do the same in 2024.

For the last full roll of the year I’ve got a roll covering one night at Mohawk. It starts off with a couple of metal/hardcore shows outside, Ninth Circle from Austin and Dress Code from Houston, followed by a pair of electronic shows inside, MVTANT from San Antonio and Semantix from Dallas. There were a couple other shows in there but I didn’t take any pictures which was probably a good thing considering how crazy the pit got.

I’ve been in/around a few mosh pits but mostly at punk shows. I’m not gonna lie, the pit at this show got a bit crazy and I’m glad I left it after the first couple sets. During Fugitive’s set I think someone jumped down to the pit from the second floor area to the right of the stage. It was a bit insane but that’s the crowd for you I guess.

Anyways, I’m actually not that interested in talking about the first couple sets. While I like a few of the pictures, especially the ones taken of Dress Code on the right side, that stinkface is great, I actually want to talk about the MVTANT and Semantix shows inside.

MVTANT covers the few pictures below Ninth Circle. And honestly I was hoping one of them would turn out the way I wanted it to. For this show I brought the fisheye lens which is featured throughout the roll, but I was hoping one of the pictures from this set in particular would be really interesting. Both MVTANT and Semantix play really heavy pulsing electronic music with really powerful bass lines. MVTANT though has a lot of flashing lights. And flashing lights makes me think of long exposures which is what about half of what these pictures were. The only semi successful one I would say is the large one shown with the shadowy figure engulfed in magenta light. I feel like a longer exposure still could’ve allowed for the audience to be shown more than the shadowy mass. Actually I wonder if I should’ve covered the left half of the frame. Hm, lots to think about. The reason why I wanted to capture the audience though is because this was maybe one of the more dance-y crowds I’ve been in. Everyone was moving to the strong bass line and it was really intense. Either way, I’d say that due to the amount of smoke, it was a really difficult set to take pictures at in general.

In contrast was Semantix’s show. While still having a good amount of smoke, it was nowhere near as difficult to understand and I feel like a good number of these pictures had interesting points to them. Most notable among them are the ones in the bottom row. Each one of these pictures is a different image with a different affect.

While I don’t usually title or name pictures, I want to try with these four because they just have such a distinct feel to them. The first is perhaps what I might call “the mad scientist”. The synthesizer cables are what are most in focus and there’s a vibe of experimentation and menace almost.

The second I might title, “the beast”. This picture, along with the one to its upper left, have this kind of almost howling pose. This picture though has a bright back lighting which creates more of a shadow effect to it. The bits and pieces of the crowd add an interesting layer to it. My memory of these first two pictures is that they were taken with the 105mm lens.

I’m not sure what I’d call this third picture. It’s maybe the least distinct of them. The fisheye lens creates some meaningful distortion and there’s almost a bit more focus on the crowd than Semantix on stage. For that reason, perhaps I’d call it “the idol”. The kind of distorted field that idolatry can create which in some ways diminishes the artist themselves.

This last picture I’d call “the revolutionary”. Or perhaps “the outlaw”. I want to call it that due to the outstretched arms and fists of the crowd and the blurred and almost defiant pose on stage. To me, this is maybe the most distinctive picture on the entire roll. It has such a distinct usage of light and crowd and affect that the focus not being anywhere in particular adds to its mystique and intrigue.

Anyways, that’s the last roll of the year. I’ve got more coming up to review the past year and thoughts on next year.

3 more roll posts for this year and this one’s a new one. This roll was shot on Lomography Color ‘92, an intentionally vintage looking color negative film rated at ISO 400. The colors are intentionally pastel and soft. Thankfully this roll was shot in between shows so on either side of it you’ll see more “normal” color variations via Portra 400 and Fuji 400 which is next. Overall, it’s a nice roll to shoot, though as you can see it’s a bit lacking in contrast. I like the effect and it could be fun to play with, but if you’re looking for sharp contrasts it’s just not the roll for you.

Anyways, continuing on, this roll starts where the previous one left off with Candy Riot playing the last set following Lena Luca and Swiss Banks. They were a pretty decent 3 piece pop band and at the end of their set a pair of dancers came up. I like a lot of these pictures. I was clearly aiming to use the lights, and the softness of Color ‘92 makes for an interesting effect. I’m not gonna say it’s perfect. Again I feel like I’d prefer many of these pictures to be one stop darker but the “overexposure” isn’t necesarily a bad thing. In addition to the pastel coloring, it gives off a very dreamlike quality that sharper contrasts and a more saturated color palette wouldn’t give off. I do wish I had done more with the timing and created more blurring effects. I decided to capture more posed shots and I don’t think that’s necessarily the correct thing to do.

Moving on to the bottom left is a collection of pictures from a pair of sets featuring Bruce, featuring the front woman of local act Calliope Musicals, and a solo set by Caroline Rose who I briefly mentioned last year. While I don’t think these pictures are necessarily that bad, overall they’re a bit bland and static. I enjoyed the shows though and do want to see Caroline Rose with a band. At this point I’ve seen them twice without and it’s a very different experience than their recorded music. So I’m quite curious what a more normal performance by them is like. Solo acts are difficult for me because there’s less you can really do in terms of image conception. This is especially the case if there aren’t other things to interact with. For example, when I was taking pictures of Lena Luca, while yes she has a drummer there, mostly I structure those as 1 subject compositions. However, most of the time there’s smoke or lighting I can use to create emphasis or archetypal images. When the environment is as uninteractive and flat as this show, there’s not a whole lot else to do but take some kind of simplistic picture as shown here.

To close out the roll are some pictures from Grocery Bag’s EP release on November 25th. Specifically on this roll are the first set of the night, Bigfoot and the Gregs, and a bit of the second set of the night, HOT///CAKES which is a few pictures right next to Caroline Rose.

I think I mentioned it in a previous post, but the Parish, where this show was at, has two floors for the audience. Because of that, I wanted to try out the 105mm lens from the upper floor. You can see those pictures up top, below the Candy Riot pictures. While I don’t think they’re bad, I find them a bit flat in comparison to the ones I took from the ground floor. The top down angle is just not as expressive. While I do like the one on the right side with the audience, including another photographer, it’s still not really a great picture. I’d argue at least some of that is just that because it’s a 105mm lens, everything’s kind of far away so there isn’t any real focus separation. What I will say is that collapsing the space between the band members is quite interesting here and makes them feel quite a bit closer than the ones taken from the ground floor.

With that said, The ones taken from the ground floor just have a lot more visual impact. They can make use of space and focus separation better. And they can also make better use of timing and pose cues as seen in the bottom right corner. That picture would seem pretty flat taken from the second floor because there wouldn’t be the groundedness that comes from being more in line with the action.

To close off the roll, I just want to talk about the HOT///CAKES picture in the bottom row right in the middle. This is what I’m talking about in terms of spatial and focus separation. It’s very clearly focused up front on the guitarist with a significant amount of focus falloff moving across the frame. That said, it’s got enough going on to the right of the frame that your eyes wander that way and don’t tunnel solely on the guitarist. Between the lights, vocalist, and bassist, there’s more than enough to pull your attention into the fuzzy space.

For the second to last roll of the year we’re continuing from where the previous roll left off. This roll covers the rest of the night, starting with HOT///CAKES, moving on to Sad Cell, and finishing off with Grocery Bag. As is hopefully obvious, I really like how this roll turned out. It’s a nice blend of a lot of things I was trying to do this year with some a/b split pictures, some 3 piece compositions, and a bit of skewed angles.

Also, it should be pretty clear how different this roll looks when compared to the previous one. It’s significantly more saturated, especially on the green/magenta directions. This roll is Fuji 400 which, to me, has somewhat similar characteristsics to Fuji 200 which I suppose makes sense.

In terms of talking about this roll, I want to talk about 2 specific pictures. The first is the 3rd one in the top row. The second is in the bottom right corner, one up from the corner.

For the first picture, this is one I remember being very specific in trying to get. The way the light highlights the guitarist was so specific and I wanted to see how the highlighting via light would work in the resulting picture. Honestly, this picture didn’t turn out quite how I expected it to. But I don’t hate it at all. I’m almost certain I didn’t intend it to have this sort of fuzzy look. But it actually works really well here. Looking more closely at it, I don’t think this is caused by focus as much as it is by camera shake or shutter speed. The reason why I say that is the bits of doubling caused by either a slow shutter speed in comparison to the action or camera shake. I like it though. It reminds me of that Big Bill picture from a couple rolls ago I talked about. It creates that kind of dreamy, hazy, radiant sort of effect that is really interesting and hard to replicate in a different way. I definitely want to see if this is something I can reproduce in the future as it’s just such a distinct effect that I’ve now come across a couple of times.

This second picture is maybe not the “best” picture of Grocery Bag I took but it probably has the most character of them. Obviously some of that is due to the picture being taken on a skewed angle. But additionally, it’s the combination of lighting and a/b split composition. The lighting is almost blown out in places but clear where it matters. This is in contrast to say the picture above it which is maybe a bit dark where it matters but relatively clear where it doesn’t. In fact, it’s worth comparing these two pictures in particular since besides a few things, they’re very similar. Both are a/b split type pictures with the close subject on the left and the far on the right. However, that’s kinda where the similarities end. As stated, there’s the lighting and skew differences. But also the focus is inverted.

It’s interesting how differently these pictures read even with quite subtle differences. The top reads maybe a bit more aggressive with its red focused color palette and generally darker demeanor. The bottom also reads aggressive though that’s through the skewed angle. My eye tends to be more gravitated to the lower picture due to its more robust lighting on the subjects. This isn’t to say that the top picture is worse, but it’s more muted in a way. More effort is necessary to interact with its subjects than the bottom picture. I think both work and both give off the same general vibe but one is more effective than the other at doing so.

I really enjoyed all the shows even if I didn’t talk much about Sad Cell. It was a nice return to Austin from some time away for Thanksgiving. I’ve got one more roll post for the year then I’ve gotta spend some time on the 36 and that a/b split post I’ve been meaning to write up.

For this next roll I’ve got some more Milky Way pictures from outside Santa Fe and two shows that have very similar colors.

This set of Milky Way pictures is quite a bit different from the previous ones. The coloration is significantly more orange and yellow which I haven’t really seen much of when looking at Milky Way pictures. My understanding of this is twofold. One, I took these pretty close to sunset and two, there are clouds on the horizon. The clouds are reflecting light from Santa Fe and probably the sunset further away. It’s a really interesting effect honestly. As should be obvious these were also taken with the fisheye lens which meant an even longer exposure, considering the widest aperture of f/2.8 compared to f/1.4 for the 50mm, so maybe that’s part of it too.

Honestly I like these Milky Way pictures a lot. They don’t feel like a lot of other ones I’ve seen. Partially due to the color scheme but also the inclusion of clouds which aren’t usually there. I will say that I’m disappointed in the satellite trails but that’s a consequence of our corporate overlords taking over the night sky. I’ll leave that there and move on.

Next up is the set of pictures under the Milky Way on the right side. These were taken at a really interesting show featuring mostly ambient and electronic focused artists. The most interesting part though was that it was a quadraphonic sound setup which meant that there were 4 sets of speakers each playing a different channel creating a truly unique sound space that was a treat to walk around in even though many people didn’t.

In terms of pictures, they’re a bit whatever. I was trying to make use of a 105mm lens but there was a mishap part way through the show so I had to back out the film then reload it. Honestly I’m a bit surprised the roll didn’t get really messed up in the process. As far as I can tell the only real odd spot is the double exposure that crossed multiple sets entirely on accident.

Lastly are some pictures of Lena Luca in the bottom left and Swiss Banks in the bottom right. Overall, I like these pictures. I think I may have wanted to cut down on the light a bit here or there but honestly I really need to get a stand alone meter. While metering with a phone is fine in general, these kinds of fine metering are difficult and awkward to do with a phone.

Out of these pictures I only want to talk about one. It’s the one second from the left in the bottom row. It’s so close but ultimately I didn’t make it work. The idea was to do a double exposure from different sides of the stage to make it look like a pair of clones singing towards each other look. But I didn’t properly orient the exposures so they overlap each other. It’s definitely one I want to try again so I’ll be looking for an opportunity sometime next year to figure it out.

This roll picks up where the last one left off. It has a little bit of Swimwear Department with a good chunk devoted to Big Bill. After that there are a couple pictures from Carlsbad Caverns and a few Milky Way pictures I took just outside of Santa Fe.

Overall, this roll’s a bit weird. While I do like a lot of the Big Bill pictures, it’s also missing a fair chunk. It’s quite difficult to take good Milky Way pictures due to something called film reciprocity. The gist here is that in addition to the normal light and time reciprocity where one stop of exposure is a doubling (or halving) of the amount of shutter time, when exposing for long durations there’s additional stretching of how long it takes for the film to register light when there’s a low amount of it hitting the film. The darker the scene and the longer the exposure, the more this ramps up and it ends up being a bit experimental. That said, this is in contrast to digital where sensors have noise and additional issues when they’re exposed for a long time creating additional heat based noise. Ultimately, neither medium is amazing at this kind of thing though digital may have an edge due to the malleability of it and the fake-ness of digital ISO.

Looking at these Big Bill pictures I kinda wish I shot them one stop faster. A good chunk of the pictures I labeled small here are mostly due to focus and motion issues that shooting one stop faster probably could’ve fixed. It’s always a bit difficult to tread that line of wanting to go slow enough to create meaningful motion but not enough to blur completely or make it difficult to hold straight. That said, I also do always say that I don’t mind things being a bit blurry. For example, the Big Bill picture on the left side is one I really enjoy. The blurriness is really interesting here. It almost creates a halo like effect which is definitely not on purpose but also quite unique. Looking at these pictures, a lot of them are 2 subject which is a bit sad. Big Bill’s a lot of fun and there was a lot of space for me to work with 3 or even 4 subjects. It’s definitely the case that some of the upcoming rolls have a bit more flexibility on that front due to the use of other lenses.

Moving onto the pictures from Carlsbad Caverns I only really want to talk about the two larger ones. This pair was taken with the fisheye lens at a large opening in the caves. There’s a stopping point with a set of bleachers before a winding descent. I was really curious to take a long exposure as people were descending to see what would happen. The left picture is definitely more interesting. The group going down used their lights significantly more and their trail of lights can be seen lighting up the railings as they descend. Ultimately I probably don’t care for the second picture as much. However, it does provide a contrast. I didn’t quite realize how long the exposure would take and I think that it’s actually brighter than I expected even though I shot it for a bit over a minute at the narrowest aperture of f/22.

Lastly are the 4 Milky Way pictures I took. I want to say these were taken with the 50mm lens considering there isn’t much barrel distortion. I actually went out 2 nights to take Milky Way pictures because I wasn’t sure how they turned out. I want to say these are from the second night though I’m not entirely sure about that. For context, these pictures were taken the night(s) before the annular solar eclipse as every eclipse is flanked by nights with very little to no moonlight which makes for great stargazing weather assuming you’re in a place for it. With that in mind, I talked to the receptionist at the motel I was staying at in case they knew of any places around Santa Fe. Thankfully, he was very helpful and pointed me in the direction of a pretty secluded area about 20-25 minutes outside of Santa Fe off a dirt road that was absolutely gorgeous. Even though I don’t really know much about the night sky and it’s an overwhelming thing to me, it’s also an awe inspiring sight and I’m glad I made my way out on a couple cold nights to see the stars I usually can’t see.

This next roll is a very different one to most of my others. I once again made my way outdoors to take some landscape and nature sorts of pictures for the first time in a while. This roll covers White Sands National Park and Santa Fe’s botanical garden.

Immediately, the weirdest thing about this roll is how inconsistent the color is, mostly in regards to the pictures at White Sands. These pictures range from completely cyan to purple to yellow and it’s wild. Obviously, looking at the negatives there are differences but it’s really hard to tell colors properly. I can only assume that my scanner is doing really weird color correction but it’s not entirely clear to me in what direction or why. If I were more caring about this, I’d figure out the exact color settings and negative setup but honestly I don’t really care. The differences in color are quite interesting to me even if they’re some software relic. If I were being truthful, the color would likely be closest to the second picture from the top and left. The sand at White Sands is really quite white due to it being a fine gypsum sand. Part of me wonders if the sand itself flying about affected some of the pictures colorwise but that seems a bit far fetched.

Because of those weird colors, I’ve decided to again make a black and white version of this roll. And honestly I think I still like the same pictures for the most part, at least in regards to White Sands. A big focus for the pictures I was taking at White Sands was exploring the use of telephoto lenses in regards to landscape pictures in particular. As a result I took a 200mm lens along with a 28-105mm zoom lens along with me and most of the pictures were either at 105mm or 200mm. In addition to the telephoto exploration a handful of these pictures were very specifically timed for use with shadows, namely the picture in the top right corner and the one just left of it. I’d go so far as to say that those two pictures in particular are ones I greatly prefer in black and white instead of in color. The blues and purples distract from the light contrast. However, for the second picture in I’d also argue that the color picture does a better job of focusing on the small person in the frame. Something about them just stands out a tiny bit more and is a bit more obviously person like. I’m not entirely sure why.

Overall I wish I had more time at White Sands to take pictures, especially on a day with more striking light contrasts. It’s definitely a place I’d be willing to go and explicitly shoot in black and white instead of in color. While the endless dunes make for a strange landscape, there’s a lot of peace to them and I’d love to explore them a bit more.

Going to the Santa Fe botanical garden pictures, honestly while I rated some of these relatively well, it’s a bit of a bland set of pictures. Mostly I was interested in using a set of macro filters that I happened to find and buy in Carlsbad. There are more pictures with those filters coming up that I hope are a bit more interesting than these pictures. But all that said I did enjoy the botanical gardens, though they were pretty small. It’s a nice and refreshing place to visit. I think I’ll leave this roll there considering I’m not super interested in any other pictures in particular.

This is a bit of a weird roll. It’s the annular solar eclipse roll. But there also aren’t any pictures of that in this collage. That’s because I didn’t like those pictures. They’re just not interesting so I didn’t feel like putting them in. As a result, here are the remaining pictures I took at Valles Caldera national preserve.

You might note one very prominent spot that looks like a large picture could go there. While I was at Valles Caldera I took a guided hike and took a picture of our park ranger guide. I don’t particularly want to post a picture of someone without their consent so it’s not a part of this collage. Implicitly when someone performs on stage they are saying that their picture/video will be taken so I don’t feel as bad in regards to live music photography. It’s definitely a tricky subject but I don’t want to be so thoughtless about this especially to someone who may not want to be public in that way.

Again, this roll is one with a strong lean towards the use of telephoto lenses and I really like how it turned out overall. The compression of space works really well when things are very far apart. Unlike the pictures from Palo Duro canyon last year which were taken with a wide angle lens and felt a bit aimless, I feel like these have a lot more focus to them. It’s perhaps a bit disingenous to compare those considering how much progress I’ve made in thinking through my pictures. But I think that telephoto lenses are a bit more powerful here where everything’s far away. The most powerful example of this is the bottom left corner. While it looks quite normal, the three layers of tree covered hills is very well spaced in a way that isn’t possible shooting wide angle.

It’s been a bit since I talked about film stock. This is shot on Kodak Pro Image 100. It’s not my favorite. The colors are very cyan/orange biased, at least in this roll. That said, as you’d expect of a 100 ISO film, the grain is really tight and there’s an abundance of detail in a lot of these pictures. While I’d still prefer something like Portra 400 given the circumstances I tend to shoot in, I’d be willing to try again. It may just be the environment I shot in lended itself to these weirdly cyan skies.

I don’t really feel like I have a lot to say here without going super in depth about a couple of these pictures and I’m not that interested in doing so. So I think I’ll leave it here even if I find it a bit unsatisfying for some reason. I guess that’s my take away from this roll, oddly unsatisfying even if I like a good chunk of these pictures.