.March ‘26.
~ Carry the Zero ~
Thinking about a different approach moving forward. Selecting a handful of photos and a brief insight to the process or frame of mind. They could be deep or shallow—sometimes, it really isn’t that deep bro… Anyways, March was 2 rolls on a whim right at the end of the month. I like to keep myself grounded sometimes with intentional self-destructive shooting. Reckless, zero expectations. Often it garners little results, but down the road, when I piece together images left on the cutting room floor… a cohesion or narrative may present itself. Nothing groundbreaking this roll, but the reflection is that I feel I’ve achieved a style from pushing my limits, which now, regards some pulling back and looking else where. Perhaps back to moments, rather than hyper focus on XCU gestures. Who knows what’s next. That’s the beauty in it.
So, let’s take a look…
Kentmere 400 +3
Kodak Gold 200 +2
I picked up a 135mm lens recently and thought I’d throw myself into the fire for a full roll. I was considering the ease of shooting from across the street onto adjacent corners. Usually there is loving couples showing affection or an interesting long gaze.. not much was happening, but the crosswalks gave some action to practice focus on moving objects as they approached. With a wildly zoomed in perspective this was quite challenging to capture. Then I started attempting faces or movement right in front of me. Not too bad, but certainly hard to see what’s coming and when it will cross the frame. I had pushed my film so high that f16 demanded 1/1000 I had little room to play with motion blur or bokeh. Something to consider in the future.
What I found funny, was seeing a moment, framing it up and then realizing I had to walk back about 10 ft to either fit it all in the frame or pick a part of the subject I found interesting. Mainly, I was focussing on layering. Practice makes perfect, this was fun and will likely incorporate it. Gotta stay curious and keep growing. I move on quickly, I like to learn and push the limits and ideally subconsciously marry all the techniques.
My next roll was back to regularly scheduled programming—28mm/flash bang/slow shutter. My knife was a little dull, so I was just messing around and decided to try pushing Kodak Gold again. I had previously pushed it 3 stops to 3200 and crushed the tones heavy-duty. However, I figured with flash the shadows wouldn’t be a total loss and I’d get all that gritty grain I like. Composition wise, not overly moved.
As I’ve come to learn, some of these images may make more sense down the road in sequence or pairing—fractions of the sum. I think a lot of audience perception [internal & external] is expecting HERO shots. Well, as much as we all would love to be hammering out those on a daily basis, it’s not the case, and honestly, not something I strive for. These days I’m much more focussed on what my images can provide in terms of lesson or time when there are many pieces.
I digress, but I assure you, I’m not making excuses for lesser photography or composition—everything I do is intentional.
So above, I like to get close with my 28mm. My fav shot is the cherry keychain ornament paired against a deep maroon fur coat, as well as the small child in a similar pink fur on an off-set angle hip shot. Ultimately, I think I’ve hit a wall here with this style and need to pull back the reigns and find a healthy balance of scene and style.
The colour is returning as Spring blossoms and Summer heat hits us. I recently put my creative energies into a project TBD release and incubated some ponderings on how to shoot the upcoming months. And that is what I’m excited about. I have three Mintola SRTs now and several lenses, so I’ll be going akimbo all Summer!
As always, your interest is appreciated–look out for physical releases as I have been pulling away from displaying images on social media platforms and even still reluctant here—but this is and always was meant to be a space for journal and reflection I allow friendly strangers to visit if they are so inclined.