Finding new things to shoot

Photographing Edmonds, Washington very differently decades later.

Last day of 2025

The Quimper Peninsula

Wispy clouds over the Pacific

A gentle but incessant cold breeze swept over the wet sand that smelled like the ocean but the brisk walk from the parking lot made it comfortably warm. The sunset was still thirty minutes away and I kept taking photographs of these sea stacks along the way even though there was not much to frame unique photographs.

The thirty minutes to sunset felt very long but it eventually ended and the tide did not come in too far. These rocks clothed in algae looked dark on the face away from the sunlight, the ocean water kept pushing me far from the sea stacks. And then all of a sudden without forewarning the wind stopped while the weak low tide swells crawled over the sand and around these rocks for the final photograph of the day.

Long before the sunset, the first stop in the journey - a lighthouse, specifically the North Head Lighthouse on the north coast of the Columbia River facing the Pacific. These wispy clouds were already here when I got here but took longer to travel south towards the sea stacks of Canon Beach. As the sun crawled the southern sky, I saw this person walk around the lighthouse looking down, presumably to avoid the sun. I thought of waiting for them to walk out of my frame but I’m glad I didn’t.

Old Town Portland

I recognized few buildings and streets and they brought back good memories. It has been years since I’ve stopped in Portland but it seemed less hostile today.

The shortest day of 2025

December 21st, 2025: Journal entries indicate Mrinabh was sick of the incessant rainstorms and historically record level flooding in Western Washington. There has been very little opportunities to go out and shoot for weeks at this point, especially since most of the ridiculously priced and valued camera gear I own at this point aren’t weather sealed. The shortest day of the year however, promised of near zero percent precipitation chance.

Shooting CineStill 400D at 1600 speed fell appropriate to commemorate the overcast low light last day of Fall. But this was not my idea it was a seed of thought planted in my brain by a friend who asked earlier if I had pushed 400D two stops. Until this day I had not attempted this…

Rust and dust

Natural and “prop-ed” placement of photographable things across rural South Nevada.

Summer in the Northwest

Seagulls are now relatively quieter possibly due to abundance of food, from tourists and nutrient rich water of the Puget Sound. The weather turns arid for a brief moment, where there were once standing water in puddles are now pits of dried dirt, the familiar smell of mold has faded away making room for the smells of summer. There are more events in the city attracting more people for far and wide.

Tokyo on film

Adventures on foot in a state of acute jet lag fueled exhaustion, shot on Leica M6 + 35mm Summilux-M

Portraits on Film

Seattle Film Club event.

Kentmere 200 (New film)

When I first heard about this film I was least excited, not just because ISO 200 is my least favorite film speed but also Kentmere line of films aren’t my go-to film when it comes to black & white photography. But after seeing Kyle’s review of this new film stock generated my interest in trying it out.

Very happy with the results!

Leica IIIF: Week One

A camera that reminds me of engineering tools from a time when the world that was not catered by China.

The other side

Saturday roadtrip to the greener side of the fence.

A tree with no name

Before me there must have been at least other admirers who must have seen this tree, standing at the corner where the road turns into a relatively flat run, after about two thousand feet climb in the last five miles or so. But I have done it many times and even filmed a timelapse sequence at this location many years ago.

It was early in the year, the ground was several inches below a blanket of hardened and yet spongy snow that had accumulated over months. The afternoon sun was low to the horizon and the light reflecting off the snow in the background shone through the branches of the tree hurting my eyes. It was a weekend day but we were far out of reach from the ugly west beyond the mountains. I stood there in absolute silence gazing at the silhouette of the tree and thought about how I could meter this scene right. I had Kodak Tri-X in my Leica M-A: a bare-bones camera that I love the most of all my shooting tools and an orange filter to cut through the blue sky.

It was a bright day: Sunny 16 rule tells me I should set 1/400 sec shutter speed to f/16 aperture, less two stops to compensate the orange filter. But it would have underexposed the tree, the details in the bark. I took a spot meter reading on the main trunk dead center and it read 1/60 seconds at f/16 aperture. Applying zone system math to it, I decided to put the 1/60th sec reading at Zone IV(average dark foliage) and fired the shutter set to 1/125 seconds.

Kodak Tri-X 400, Leica M-A, Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1, Tiffen Orange 21 filter

Bainbridge to Seattle

A rather warm but windy Spring day ferry ride from Bainbridge to Seattle, shot on Fujifilm X100VI.

Handheld long exposures

Early Spring evening with heavy storm clouds moving across the sky to the west barring any possibility of a grand sunset, and ruins of old boardwalk and pier in the foreground - I wished I had brought my tripod to this day. But wait... this camera I was carrying not only had a built in ND filter but also a rock solid IBIS allowing one to take longer than sub seconds exposures. As someone who grew up taking long exposure photographs at night in the wilderness, shooting handheld was quite the breakthrough in terms of experience.

Mr. Blue Sky

The winter does not give away without a fight. Early Spring storms bring an intriguing mix of storm and sunny weather in the Pacific Northwest, and promises of warmer days ahead.

Shoot digital like film

Note: This is not a Fujifilm X100VI review.

One of the big deal things in the world of digital photography is film recipes. I sense this came as a response to impracticality in the economics of analog photography and lack of modern analog cameras meeting the needs of many. If I were to tell you I was never interested in emulating the “film look” in my digital work I’d be lying. But until now I had not found a workable solution for it and the solution was not the physical tool but the powerful image editing capabilities that it offered.

My journey begun with the objective to emulate the film look, not just the general idea of how the photographic results should look but also attempt in creating photographs to look as if they were recorded on very specific films such as Kodak Portra or Fujifilm Velvia, or Fujifilm Acros. But I found film recipes more like the templates to start developing my own “film look” presets that need not adhere to making my images look like they were taken on film.