We arrived at Santa Elena Canyon late in the day and the parking lot was nearly full, but beginning to empty. We met several group heading out as we walked toward the river. By the time we were at the mouth of the canyon, it felt like we had the place nearly to ourselves.
The favored light – the one you see in the posters and postcards – hits the canyons in the morning. We were there late in the afternoon, which meant that the sun was beyond the canyon. The way was also overcast, but that worked in my favor by eliminating the harshness of backlighting.
Looking towards the canyon, especially from a distance, I kept wondering over the power of the mostly placid river to cut such a deep cut into the Sierra Ponce cliffs.
This final shot is a reverse shot, looking north out of the mouth of the canyon toward the U.S. side of the Rio Grande. The light was starting to fade by this time, especially in the shadow within the canyon.
Being a huge fan of onsen hot springs in Japan, I couldn’t pass up the chance to visit the one in Big Bend. We stopped at the trailhead that leads to the Boquillas Hot Springs to cook dinner, then visited a few other sites before sundown before heading back to take a dip in the warm waters after dark.
At one time, these springs right on the banks of the Rio Grand were a huge attraction. There’s an old post office that’s been converted into a visitors center and the remains of a ‘motor court’ that housed visitors.
Today, they’re just the empty buildings.
Shot on Cinewtill BWXX with the Leica M4-P.
The dramatic cliffs seem to hand over the motor court but are actually a way down the trail toward the hot springs.
The post office looks like a movie set.
And a medium format shot taken on the Perkeo II, which looks even more like a still from an old-time movie.
Metropolis is my favorite among Lomography’s Lomocrhome films. I can have fun with the purple and turquoise, but imaging the final image is a challenge – part of the appeal but something that, for me, makes them less than a general purpose film.
Metropolis’s de-saturated colors seems to pair well with the grittiness of an urban streetscape. Here are a few shots from Chinatown made on an Olympus XA.
I ordered 10 rolls of this film on Stanta 1000’s Kickstarter last year but so far have shot only a couple of rolls. This has nothing to do with the film itself, but mostly because I tend to lean toward black and white, which I can develop at home.
Overall, I like the look this film delivers. While I love the muted tones that seem to play up the reds by comparison, I also found you can get some punchy colors out of this film under the right condition.
I bought a Mamiya RB67 earlier this year, something I definitely did not need as I already owner several medium format cameras, mostly 6×6, but also a 6×9. Still, I was curious about the buzz and it came bundled with a Mamiya C3 and C330, so why not?
The first few rolls produced decidedly mixed results, entirely on me.
The camera his a beast to haul around and I still fumble with it every time I take it out. I like the 6×7 format and it shows promise, but I’m undecided about if I’ll keep it, mainly because I’m unsure how often I would take it out.
The 6×7 I lust after is the Fuji GF670, something I could travel with, though I’ve never even seen one in real life let alone held one.
I started the year kind of burned out on taking photos. After a year of the pandemic, I hadn’t really gone anywhere and working from home meant that there was little of the day-to-day opportunity to explore the town. So I shot very little.
Then about half way through the year, I decided to try different film stock to get myself out of the slump. I rediscovered color dabbling with Lomography‘s 400 and 800 color negative as well as their Metropolis. I also loaded up on different black and white film, including the new Acros II and film from CineStill – 800t, BWXX – though I’ve yet to get to them.
And I see lots of possibilities for the super high contrast of Japan Camera Hunter‘s Streetpan 400.
I didn’t stop shooting black and white, but shooting color in 35mm when I’d mainly used the medium for 120 gave me a new way to see a familiar landscape.
So I’ve given over a shelf in my fridge to this hoard of film – both 35mm and 120. And while winter doesn’t offer the best light, I’m eager to continue shooting in the new year. I usually shoot 120 only when I”m traveling but I think I’ve found some shots locally that I’d like to try.
I’ve also decided to get back into developing my own black and white, something I haven’t done since I was in school, and have started DSLR scanning some of the old slides in my binder, some dating back to the 70s (the colors from Kodachrome and Ektachrome are amazing and require no real adjustment once they’ve been uploaded).
I leave you with best wishes for the new year.
Here are some of the highlights – in no particular order – from another year of shooting film:
Captured by Film 