Dusting Off My Gear and Skills

Since making a conscious effort to pick up photography again, I’ve realized that my skills may be rusty and my gear may need servicing. I used to see potential images everywhere I went, the inspiration seeping into my daily life even without a camera in hand. I’d frame a scene in my head, consider what settings I’d want to use to achieve the desired effect, maybe take a step to the left or dip down a bit to change my angle, assess the lighting and decide if a better time of day should be considered. My husband loved to make fun of me when I would do this and was only sometimes embarrassed when I inevitably found myself sizing up a scene in public. I’m certain he misses it…

Now that I’m considering taking on clients again, I went back through my work over the past several years and analyzed what I felt worked and didn’t work as well. While I love using my medium format camera on planned portraits, engagements, or newborn shoots, it doesn’t perform as well with active, young families (which would be my niche moreso…although I would happily photograph babies all day, everyday). It’s simply too difficult to achieve acceptable focus on a consistent basis.

So I decided to break out my “old” Nikon F100 and give her another go. The only problem was, I had sold both of my (extremely nice and pricey) lenses that had fit it. I do, however, have a lens adapter that enables me to use Mamiya lenses on a Nikon lens mount. The only not-too-sticky Mamiya lens I have is my 85mm 1.9 which I really love, but I absolutely needed my Nikon 24mm 1.4 lens back if I had any real hope of working with families indoors again. I hopped on ebay, found said lens, cried a little bit at the price, and hit “buy now.”

While waiting on the new lens to arrive, I used the adapter ring and dragged my family around the house. It had been so long that any of us had done this, that we were all a little lost I think. It’s definitely going to take a bit of practice to find my groove of directing/encouraging interactions and emotions to get the shots I want, but I know that I can get there by just doing it more regularly. I also took this opportunity to brush up on metering, challenge myself with tricky lighting situations, and shoot with a very wide aperture. When the auto scans came back, I breathed a sigh of relief…the camera body evidently still works, the lens adapter obviously functions properly, and my “eye” clearly isn’t blind, just blurry at times :-p

This is my favorite image from the roll. My eldest is such an old soul, and I feel this photo captures that perfectly which is what I was going for.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this image, but it kind of both creeps me out and amazes me. To my eye, it looks like her young adult self is looking back at her child-like image. It’s as if it’s some kind of strange two-way mirror between the present and the future.

This is my youngest’s current favorite stuffed animal, dubbed Eliza. She takes very good care of her sweet little bear.

She also loves any and all birds, which is fitting since her nicknames are “Birdy” and “Little Bird.”

I also shoved my poor husband into this patch of light so that I could try out that very tricky lighting situation. I didn’t quite succeed, so I’ll have to interrupt his afternoon “wine down” time again at some point.

I kind of have an obsession with the winter light here. It’s so crisp and has the most delicate gold haze to it. I love to see it juxtaposed against the blue snow and how it laces through the spruce trees. This was shot from one of our corner windows that I will often sit and marvel at during sunset.

And I’ve always had an obsession with any and all clouds. The way that they enable you to visualize the invisible is simply stunning. Their colors, patterns, and textures all stir my soul and inspire me to create.

And some frames of my girls just being themselves. Oh, how I love them!

Unfortunately, my test roll with the new 24mm lens was a complete failure. I had decided to test out the F100’s in-camera meter because I couldn’t remember if it worked or not. I set it to spot meter (which was probably a mistake) and took some test readings of my girls’ faces before hitting a short ski trail with them. The readings came back very off to my mind, but I had no other meter on hand and I never bothered to memorize the Sunny 16 rule (I guess I should do that?). It had been so long since I had used the camera, I thought there was definitely a chance that my internal calibration could be wrong. Alas, I should’ve trusted my gut because all of the images came back so horribly underexposed to the point that I couldn’t even determine the sharpness of my new lens and the F100’s autofocus capability.

I’m going to have to put another roll through this weekend and try again. I really want to finish these tests before we leave for our trip to the UK, and possibly buy one more lens. Anyway, here’s the last shot I want to share for today…forced proof that they do get along at times ;-)

Cabin Fever

Something we’ve noticed since living here is that seemingly everyone has a cabin somewhere within two hours of their primary residence. To say that we’re jealous wouldn’t be entirely correct (although we definitely feel those wistful pangs now and then), it moreso gives us a strong desire to make this dream into our own reality. It would be/is a good goal for us to work towards together with an eye to the future of keeping this cabin to be passed down to our kids, and maybe even our grandkids one day.

For me, the ideal scenario would be to find a beautiful piece of land around 5 to 10 acres in size on a small, non-motorized lake and surrounded by beautiful birch and aspen trees. We could swim in the lake over the summer, gaze at the golden foliage in the autumn, and possibly ice skate over the winter. I absolutely love interior design and to have the opportunity to design, build, and execute my vision for a quaint lakeside cottage would be a dream come true!

In the meantime, we have the most amazing neighbor that practically has this exact set up I just described (with a vintage wood-fired hot tub to boot!) and he offered up his dry cabin to us this past summer to enjoy a weekend at. It was bliss. We canoed, swam in the (chilly) lake, soaked in the hot tub, enjoyed the fire pit, played lots of board games, and just had the most wonderful family time. I really hope that one day we can make something like this happen for our own kids.

The cabin was cute and snug with a loft for beds and the kitchen and living area below. You could hear the loons on the lake and sitting on the front porch was so peaceful and relaxing, listening to the screen door creak open and slam shut as our girls ran in and out and down to the lake and back again. It was simple living at its finest.

This is where my husband and I would sip our morning coffee.

The highlight of the weekend for the girls was swimming in the lake. Now, I have quite an aversion to cold water, but even I couldn’t resist a quick dip. The bracing water was absolutely exhilarating and I hadn’t felt that alive in years. There’s something about swimming in nature that feels both terrifying and right. Of course, this could also be due to the fact that I grew up in Florida and lakes meant snakes and alligators, so it may just be me that has an extreme (yet reasonable) fear of swimming in still bodies of water…

Post lake swim warm up!

Going through these photos from last summer has so warmed my heart. What an incredibly beautiful place we live and how fortunate we are to be surrounded by equally beautiful people who love to share their piece of paradise with us!

Welcome to Alaska

Well, it’s been a hot minute since I last posted and so much has changed over these past few years. The only thing I really want to touch on right now though is our move to Alaska! As my youngest daughter commented this morning after seeing the sunrise colors reflected against the mountains across the Cook Inlet, “We live in a masterpiece.” It is simply jaw dropping up here.

However, its vast beauty can be difficult to capture with photography alone. I can look at pictures that I’ve taken, along with images made by others, and I can objectively say that they are beautiful photos. None of them take my breath away though, as I experience on a near daily basis here. In other words, you just have to live it to truly understand how awe inspiring this far northern land is.

Everything is larger than life in Alaska and it’s a truly humbling experience just to walk around and attempt to take it all in while staying alive. There are so many ways to die up here, which I realize sounds terribly morbid, but that constant buzzing of fear every time you step out your door (seriously, I was almost trampled to death by a moose in my own front yard…in the suburbs) makes you hyper aware and appreciative of the beauty and brevity of life.

Yep, people have died here, too. Beware the mudflats around Anchorage!

We’ve been easing our way into safely exploring our more immediate surroundings. A Volkswagon Vanagon has joined our family. Our weekend jaunts in “Savannah” are the highlight of our summer.

We’ve all taken up Nordic skiing and absolutely love it. I’ve discovered that what I always suspected about myself was correct…winter is my spirit season! In my mind, there’s nothing more wonderful than watching the snow fall, skiing through fresh tracks, sledding with a thermos of hot cocoa, ice skating on a lagoon, and driving up into the mountains to watch the northern lights.

I only wish I had more images of the winter up here. Sadly, I have not been shooting nearly as much these past couple of years. As I said at the beginning of the post, so much has changed and not all of it good. My father passed away in the summer of 2020 and seeing as he was the one I shared such a strong connection with through photography, it was almost painful to pick up my camera again. What was the point if I couldn’t show him my life through my lens?

Handed the camera off to my husband here. This was after competing in the Alaska Ski for Women while representing my Scottish clan with our tartan on my kilt!

And so I’ll leave it here for now. I’m determined to shoot more and rekindle the joy I used to find in capturing my life and surroundings. I have some big goals this year for my photography, from getting into another publication for some of my fine art to restarting my business for families. Wish me luck and I hope all is well with you and yours, wherever you may be in this wild world!

Florida on Film

     I received all of my scans from our trip to Florida back from The FIND Lab last week and it was one of those rare times that I fell in love with so many frames as soon as I saw them.  It usually takes a few looks for most of the images to grow on me, but not this time!  They felt nostalgic the second I opened them, which is what I was going for.  Maybe it had something to do with shooting very expired Ektar film that I had never heard of (Ektar 25) that presented gorgeous punchy colors that were somewhat soft and scratched, complete with some light leaks.  Here are some shots from that roll.  I have one canister left of that emulsion and I will be very carefully choosing the scenario that I'll be shooting it in, I love it that much!

This is me with my first baby.  No waves in sight which broke my heart, but it felt good just to paddle around.

There was a loud afternoon storm happening, hence my eldest's uncertain expression.

     I shot through 2 more rolls of Ektar 100 on 35mm and 2 rolls of it on 120mm.  One of those medium format rolls I put through my Holga and only one image worked.  The rest were far too dark.  You need a TON of light for a Holga to work properly, and while I was experimenting with multiple exposures to increase the amount of light that hit the emulsion, it still wasn't enough for the vast majority of the frames.  Here is the one that worked, taken of the girls exploring my favorite fort when I was young, Fort Pickens:

     The other Ektar 100 medium format roll was shot on my Mamiya and they have become some of my favorite images ever shot, EVER.  I left the girls with my parents, went back out to Ft. Pickens, and really took my time experimenting with some shots.  I was very interested in capturing some slow shutter images of the Gulf of Mexico at dusk and while the conditions weren't as ideal as I was hoping, I was floored by how they came out regardless.  I shot these at an 8 second shutter speed, rated at 100, after the sun had set.  Take a look!

This just may be my favorite shot I've ever taken.  I've already had it enlarged and ordered a custom-made poplar frame for it so that I can hang it somewhere in our house.  

     While out at the beach that same evening, I gave slide film another try as well.  This was my third attempt and my best yet, but still a fail overall in my opinion.  I'm getting closer to nailing exposure, but I still overexposed by about a stop on most of the frames since I was trying to compensate for the emulsion's expiration date.  I suppose my dad's freezer works perfectly and I should shoot it as if it's brand new and fresh.  This is Ektachrome 100 on 120mm...

     And here are some favorites from the last of my 35mm Ektar 100.  I will never get over the colors of Ektar.  Now if only I can figure out how to shoot it handheld in low light, I'll never use another film stock :-p

We took the girls and their best friend to Big Kahuna's waterpark in Destin.  These kiddos had SO much fun!

A purposeful light leak.

     Even though 5 out of 7 rolls I shot were Ektar, I still brought along some Portra 400 for the times I knew that I would be indoors and if was excessively overcast.  Here are some images from the one roll of Portra I shot on vacation.  We ended up having to make an overnight stop on the long trek back home, so the Portra came in handy.  In my defense, it was a 14 hour drive by myself with 2 kids and a Great Dane :-p

I'm fairly certain that my children are incapable of making a normal expression when they know their picture is being taken.

Proof of a solid vacation.

     Finally, I also shot a lot of Polaroids on this trip...far more than usual.  I really enjoyed it and I'm surprised that I don't bring out my SX-70 more.  I'll have to change that!

     And that's it for our trip to Florida!  Our next big trip will be to New York City for a week in October...gotta get my Leica M6 repaired before then.  Also, I successfully boiled, soaked, and processed a new roll of film soup and I love the results.  I'll blog those next week!

Stirring the Pot

     I had been itching to develop my most recent experiment ever since I shot it on Pensacola Beach a couple of weeks ago.  My initial plan was to let a lab do the honors, but after consulting with my local lab and discovering that they (rightfully) weren't too crazy over the idea of contaminating their chemicals with my concoction, I finally accepted that I would have to develop my latest roll of film soup on my own.  This had me very nervous due to how developing C-41 emulsion is far more temperature sensitive than B&W (plus I had never developed any color film before), but I ordered a kit of Unicolor anyway and was filled with an even mix of excitement and dread when it arrived in the mail yesterday.  

     For this particular roll, which was Kodak Gold 200 rated at box speed, I chose to forgo boiling it this time and instead simply soaked it in berry beer and a tablespoon of dish soap for a couple of days, then dropped it into some rice for another 2 days before leaving it on the window ledge for the next week to finish drying.  Fairly certain that the emulsion was dry by now, I decided it was time to begin this new journey of film development and celebrated with one too many glasses of wine.  After reading through the instructions while slightly inebriated and chuckling at the suggestion that I wear a white lab coat, complete with latex gloves and goggles, I scampered to the stove to start mixing up the chemicals.

     I then spent the next half an hour cursing at the Dutch oven full of water and our electric range for the wildly fluctuating temperature.  The goal was 110 degrees Fahrenheit to properly dissolve the developer and Blix (a bleach mixture) concoctions.  I don't know how many times I'd run to the freezer, throw some ice cubes in the pot, stir the water, take the temperature, swear at the reading, turn up the heat, fish out the ice cubes, etc. etc.  This process went on for far too long and I'd like to blame the alcohol on that fact, thankyouverymuch.  

     The developer dissolved without a glitch.  The Blix, on the other hand, reacted like one of those elementary school volcano experiments, reminding me of just what exactly an "endothermic reaction" is, which the instructions had helpfully told me to expect, but unhelpfully, didn't go into details.  An iodine-like foam oozed out of the amber glass jar and all over the counter, onto the stovetop, and splashed on the floor, leading me to start yelling to no one in particular, "IT'S FINE, EVERYTHING IS FINE!" as I suddenly really wished that I did have a white lab coat.  

     The solutions now somewhat successfully mixed, I started to prepare myself for the hard part of this process: maintaining a stable 102 degree Fahrenheit temperature for the chemicals throughout the development process.  I decided to fill the bathtub with the hottest water I could manage and after a bit of finagling, managed to get the temperature relatively correct and put the glass bottles in, monitoring their temperatures.  Naturally, the Blix decided to misbehave again and was significantly cooler than the developer (which is weird since it was an "endo-"thermic reaction...I guess I lost more of the original liquid than I had thought), which led me to removing the developer from the tub and running the Blix bottle directly in the stream of hot water.  After about 15 minutes of messing with the temperatures, I FINALLY nailed the 102 degrees for both solutions and immediately began to develop.

     It turns out that developing C-41 is pretty similar to developing B&W, albeit with a few extra steps and it's a bit more finicky about temperature.  It needs to soak for 1 minute in 102 degree water before you drain it and pour in the developer, you agitate more frequently (4 inversions every 30 seconds), and you have that lovely Blix to contend with.  Everything was going relatively smoothly up until about halfway through the Blix stage, of course.  I was just finishing up an inversion when the top blew off of the tank with a loud pop, making me scream as the deep amber chemicals spewed onto the walls and mirror.  My husband yelled worriedly up the stairs, "What was that?" and I responded with my typical, "I'M FINE EVERYTHING IS FINE!" as I wished for that dang lab coat yet again.

     After the rinse stage, I was anxious to pull out the film and see what I got.  Happily, there were actual images on the strip!  Unhappily, they looked relatively normal.  I know, strange reaction to be upset over the emulsion not being damaged enough, but I had really been looking forward to extreme color shifts.  I hung up the strip as I sighed and then went to bed, somewhat looking forward to scanning them in the morning.  Now, scanning is a whole other beast that I typically hate with the passion of a thousand burning suns, but I actually quite enjoyed scanning C-41.  I liked the control I had over the final product and it actually didn't take as long as B&W for some reason.

     And so, without further ado, here are some of my favorite images from this second roll of film soup!  As you will be able to see, most of the color shifts are very subtle, but I still like them regardless.  I will be boiling it next time though followed by a 2 day soak, but I don't know when that experiment will be happening.  I'll be getting a couple hundred scans back this week from The FIND Lab, so that'll keep me busy for awhile.  Enjoy!

The most damaged from the roll...I love how my fingerprints showed up on this "selfie" with my girls.

My favorite.  Simple, subtle, minimalistic rainbow shifts.

Troubleshooting

     Some of you may remember that I shot a roll of medium format on Father's Day with my husband and kids.  I used Ilford HP5 in my Mamiya 645, rated at 1600 and pushed two stops in development.  The images I posted on here had been cropped to exclude a dark line that ran all along the left side of the frame.  Here is an example of an uncropped frame:

     This line was present on each and every frame from that roll and was also visible on the negatives themselves.  I fretted about this for awhile, assuming that it was a shutter lag or some shutter issue in general, but then I fired off a roll of color film, sent it off to The FIND Lab (best lab ever, guys), and got scans back that were completely free of any shaded line.

     I suppose these results assuaged my fears before heading out on our trip to Florida, although I did replace the battery in my Mamiya, just in case.  On one particular day while on vacation, my parents watched the girls while I lugged out all of my big girl gear and schlepped through the sand to capture the sunset.  I burned through 4 rolls of Portra 400, Ektachrome 200, Ektar, and HP5, really pushing myself to experiment with low light, slow shutter speed (since my dad let me borrow his heavy duty tripod), and slide film again (fingers crossed).  When I got home, I developed the HP5 and about cried when I hung the negatives to dry.  The dreaded line had returned with a vengeance.

     I immediately started to rack my brain about what could possibly be going wrong.  I was now fairly confident that it wasn't a camera or scanning issue, but a development one.  I started clicking through old black and white images that I've developed and scanned before and found no lines until...I bought a new developing tank.  You see, my dad had given me his old off-brand tank and reel a couple of years ago and I had been using that since I had re-entered the world of film.  However, it leaks pretty badly and so I can't do inversions without losing too many chemicals and thus screwing up the development process that way, so I sprung for a Paterson tank a couple of months ago.  So far, I have developed 2 rolls of 120mm and 1 roll of 35mm in the tank.  The 35mm images came out just fine:

     So I've now eliminated the camera, the scanner, and a variety of films as the issue.  The lines only appear on 120mm Ilford HP5 shot on my Mamiya and developed in my new tank.  As you can imagine, I became highly suspicious of the Paterson tank and its annoying reel (I could never get it to work as easily as they said it should...the beginning of the film just won't catch properly and keeps curling into the grooves, making it very difficult to spool).  As fate would have it, I had dropped off the girls for karate camp yesterday and after an appointment, I rushed back home and set up my camera.  I kept every setting the same as when I had shot the Father's Day pictures last month: Mamiya 645, 80mm lens, HP5, 1/60 SS, 1600 ISO, f4.

     The following images may be *NSFW* seeing as that I'm nude, but still covered by a sheet.  I got a tattoo last week and felt that I could kill two birds with one stone by documenting the new addition to my body and troubleshooting the images problem.  After finishing the roll (which is really, REALLY hard to shoot these kind of self-portraits on film!), I used the old tank and reel to develop it.  Guess what?  The line was only present on 4 out of 15 images, and it was the first four frames that were affected, which also happen to be the first frames that get spooled... coincidence?  I think not.  The line was also much thinner and less bold.

     And so I think I've figured it out.  I'm fairly sure the line is due to how the film is initially rolled onto the spool.  If the edges curl at all and therefore touch the subsequent emulsion, the chemicals don't adequately permeate the entire strip.  The Paterson reel just never felt right.  So the next time I develop, I'll be even more conscientious of how I'm spooling the film.  And since you can't really see my tattoo in this shot, here's a better one:

And I decided to play with the edit on this one to make it look almost like a dagguerotype :-p  I don't have Photoshop, so this was as close as I could get to making it look really old/vintage.

     In case you can't read it due to the fuzziness (I told you it's really difficult to do self-portraits), it says "to the sea."  I have this admittedly irrational fear that I'm going to die and no one will remember to burn me and put my ashes in the ocean (even though it's in my living will and I've told everyone close to me). I feel that I've now done everything I can to ensure that my final wishes are honored.  Morbid, perhaps, but it puts my mind at ease.  Anyways, my panic at receiving my Florida scans back next week has vanished and I'm now anxiously awaiting those results!

Just Keep Playing

     After years (yes, years) of our kids begging to go to this particular theme park right off of I-35 in Oklahoma City, we finally acquiesced since they were tall enough to ride most of the attractions.  Their wait/patience was rewarded with a day at Frontier City filled with fun and excitement!  I just brought the Olympus and fired off several shots when the occasion called for it, not trying to get too fancy or anything, although I did experiment with purposeful light leaks for the first time.

I tried to warn them off of the spinning teacups...

The start of the light leak.

I also threw a roll of expired Kodak Vericolor in my Holga to see what I'd get.  Most of the frames didn't come out (too underexposed) and the film was obviously loose on the spool.  I got a couple of fun frames out of it though where I played with double exposures and flipping the camera upside down.

I was also out in our front yard one late afternoon before sunset and was practically drooling over the light.  I decided to experiment with some Portra 400 in my Mamiya645.  I typically rate Portra at 800 and push it a stop in post, but I decided to rate it at 200 this time just to see how I like the results.  LOVE IT.  It came out so soft and airy and I can definitely see some instances where I would want to shoot for this style.

Look at that rim light!  ::drool::

And here are a few randoms thrown in for good measure...

So that's it for now!  I'm currently down in Florida and have been shooting a TON...probably far more than necessary, but I'm really excited to see the results.  I've gotten some really cool Polaroids, attempted another roll of slide film (Ektachrome this time), burned through a roll of Kodak Gold that I plan on "souping," and plenty of general vacation stuff.  Can't wait to get those scans back in a couple of weeks!

Wading Into Film Soup

     As I promised to myself, I took my first stab at film soup last week and the results were really exciting (to me, at least).  My goal had been to cause color shifts on black and white film, seeing as I had yet to stumble across any results of such nature from others.  I rolled a dozen frames of HP5+ into a plastic bulk canister, loaded it into my Olympus XA, and burned through the roll quickly.  I knew that I needed something acidic to cut through the silver halides on the emulsion, but I wasn't sure what would make a color adhere to the film through the process of development.  

     On this first attempt, I combined pickle juice, baking soda, crushed silica gel, dish detergent, red food coloring, and water.  Bringing this aromatic concoction to a boil, I dropped the roll of film into the pot and stirred frequently for the next 5 minutes (until the plastic canister began to melt), then removed the roll and put it into a spare developing tank for the next 3 days.  I then developed and dried as usual (although I will say that the film strip was soaked and slippery when I began to process).  

     My theory was that I *might* end up with red and/or orange splotches due to the combination of red food dye and pickle juice with baking soda and silica beads.  Instead, I ended up primarily with blue smoky smudges in the scans.  See for yourself:

I don't want to psychoanalyze myself too much, but I can't help but wonder why I only like pictures of myself in which I'm distorted, obscured, and/or damaged in some way...

     I found it to be quite unexpected, but thrilling nonetheless.  I got a color shift on my first try, so that'll encourage me to continue experimenting.  I REALLY want to do this with C-41 film but understand that most labs won't develop a roll from film soup since it can contaminate and destroy results for other people's film (which I would feel terrible about), so I've decided to take the plunge into developing color film at home as well.  I hear it's a bit trickier and labor intensive, but I'm excited for the challenge.  I'll be leaving town for about 2 weeks soon (we'll be hitting up Pensacola, Cumberland Island, and New Orleans) and plan on devoting at least one roll to the purpose of "stewing" it when I get back home.

Hello Summer

     We didn't get much of a spring here in Oklahoma this year.  We went from snow over Easter weekend, left the country for our 2 week vacation in Europe, and returned to record-breaking heat that has simply refused to abate.  So that leads me to a somewhat embarrassing confession: summer is my least favorite season.  I mean, I totally get why most people love it.  Long, lazy days filled with cold drinks and sweet treats, fun afternoons spent at the beach or the pool that bleed into the late evening, often capped with some kind of outdoor concert.  

     Maybe it's just the introvert in me, but autumn and winter are where it's at in my book.  Give me hot drinks, cozy pajamas, crackling fires, an endless stack of books, softly floating snow flakes, and early nights and you'll find the happiest girl that ever did live.  And yes, I go outside in the winter.  In fact, I find myself in nature MORE often when it's cold than when it's hot.  That crisp, clean air just begs me to move and live my life.  It's a good thing we'll be moving to Alaska this winter, isn't it?

     Anyways, I obviously try to push aside my dislike for the heat so that the girls can make their own quintessential childhood memories.  A few weeks ago, I found out about an ice cream festival not far from us and so loaded us up to go get our fill of the sweet treat.  There were also plenty of bounce houses, playgrounds, and even a zip line, and it was all free!

For those wondering, those spots/scabs on my youngest are not bug bites or chickenpox.  She is *literally* allergic to the heat and breaks out in hives whenever the temperature goes above 90 degrees or if she spikes a fever.  I guess an aversion to the heat runs in our family...

     A few days after that weekend, I got an email from one of my favorite people from my college years.  Turns out, he was in Austin, TX, for a conference and considering that this was geographically the closest we've been to each other in 10 years, my mind immediately started to race, trying to plan out a spur-of-the-moment road trip.  Fortunately, this is an area that I excel in, so everything was planned and booked within hours and I left the next morning with my girls and faithful Great Dane in tow.  

     I met up with him the following night and we spent the next 3 hours trying to cram in whatever catching up we could while the girls played on the restaurant's playground and climbed trees.  It was almost a shock to see him in person again...after a decade of exchanging emails and phone calls every now and then, I'm not sure that I thought I'd ever find myself face to face with my friend again, but I'm sure glad I did!  And wouldn't you know it, I forgot to have someone take our picture with a decent camera or even a phone (like I said, I was kind of still surprised), but my youngest readily picked up her Instax camera and snapped a shot of us with the last frame from the pack.  Of course, the lens was pointed into the sun, so we got a lovely sun flare over our faces.  Oh well, it's still tangible proof that we did indeed meet up at least once more in our lives!

I have this man to thank for getting me through a lot of crap in college.  I'm eternally grateful to him :-)

     It also just so happened that my "brother from another mother" had recently moved to Austin. I hadn't seen him in a couple of years as well and so I was dying to catch up.  He and I are less than 2 months apart in age and we grew up next door to each other, worked the same jobs, traveled to faraway places to chase waves, and went to college together.  He was the brother I never had...he was my protector, my confidante, and he drove me crazy at times, but I loved him deeply.  We had grown apart in recent years and it absolutely crushed me, so I tentatively reached out to him before I left for Austin and was thrilled when he said he'd love to meet up.

     I challenged him to a round of miniature golf and we spent the next few hours knocking around the balls, eating hot dogs, and talking about the futures we had planned.  We share very similar senses of humor and I don't think I had seen him smile and laugh so much since high school (and I was right there with him).  The girls put on quite a performance for him, considering they hadn't slept much the night before and they were in a new area, but he seemed genuinely delighted by them.  They had him in fits of laughter for pretty much the whole night.

They were so busy goofing off that I couldn't even get a clear shot.

     Sandwiched in between the reunions with my friends, I promised the girls a hike to a waterfall. The images of it online looked so fun and refreshing, and I've been trying to build up their endurance in preparation for Alaska since we'll be doing a lot of hiking and backpacking.  I got everyone in their bathing suits, filled up a gallon jug of water, loaded up my camera gear, grabbed a towel, and saddled our horse (just kidding...) before taking off to try to find the trailhead.  Just FYI in case you're going to Austin: it sucks driving there.  You can't afford to make a mistake and considering that my phone was dead and I couldn't access GPS, I ended up driving around in morning rush hour traffic for about half an hour before I found where I was supposed to be.  Anyways, found the trail, hiked about a mile and half, found no water.  The girls and the dog were not pleased.  But it was a pretty hike.

The only bit of water we found.  No, I didn't let them get in.

     So after that failed expedition, we guzzled every last bit a water, blasted the AC in the van, and headed back to the hotel to go for a swim.  I was immediately forgiven.

Less than 48 hours after arriving in Austin, we turned around and went back home.  The drive was totally worth it and I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat (except that I might leave even earlier if I had a do-over).  We got back in time for my husband and I to drop off the girls at their dojo so we could go on a date night, and then the next day was Father's Day.  It was really important to me to get some updated shots of my husband with our girls, so I begged them for 10 minutes in front of my camera.  A few of these just make my heart sing.  There's nothing sweeter than pictures of your loves, and I hope the girls will one day realize that I couldn't have picked out a better man to be their father and their mother's husband.  Their future partners have a lot to live up to!

My youngest was over it by this point...

     That's it for the past month.  I'll be going into almost full-blown experimental mode in July and August since I have to send off my two main workhorses (the Leica and Mamiya) for repairs before we move.  I'm in the process of building a new camera to shoot 4x5 sheet film with and plan on playing with different lens ideas.  I love shooting sheet film since it's orthochromatic and I can therefore bring the girls into a red-lit "darkroom" under the stairs to watch the image develop in front of their eyes.  I'll also be stewing some rolls in chemical soups to experiment with color shifts and breakdowns of the emulsive layer on both C-41 and B&W.  I know that it's rarely done with B&W film, but I have a couple of ideas I want to try that I think may cut through the silver halides on the strip and influence the effects.  Stay tuned for those disasters!

Palo Duro Canyon

     A few weekends ago, I dragged my family 4 hours away from home into the middle of the Texas panhandle to go camping in Palo Duro Canyon, which is about 30-45 minutes south of Amarillo (depending on how lost you get).  The weather seemed like it would be perfect and there was only one campsite left for Saturday, so I snagged it on Thursday, we left after my husband got home from work on Friday, and we stayed that night at a hotel in Amarillo.  On Saturday morning, we headed down south to the canyon (which actually took us 1.5 hours to find because we got considerably lost).

     It was kind of funny to see such incredibly flat terrain, stretching for as far as the eye could see.  I'm actually agoraphobic, meaning that I have a fear of open spaces, so it took a lot of guts for me to take this shot.  The wind whipping through the grasses made it sound as if the prairie was alive and whispering all around me, and everywhere I turned, I saw nothing but flat land to the horizon.  Calming to some, disconcerting to others (cough ME cough cough), and I quickly hopped back in the safely confining van immediately after taking the shot.

     So you're driving through this vast expanse of nothingness when suddenly the ground drops off in front of you and you're in front of a breathtaking canyon.  It's the second largest canyon in the United States actually.

     We promptly made our way down through the only canyon road and I was in love.  Something about me that's kind of odd is that I'm an ocean girl at heart, but the desert landscape really does make my heart sing.  The striated colors of rusts and oranges and dusty yellows soothe me and I have a particular soft spot for all kinds of cacti (maybe because they're the only flora I've managed to not kill at home?).  The air is dry and crisp, the stars twinkle more brightly, and the sunrises are to die for.  After setting up our tent, we went out on some hikes and rock scrambling before settling into our hammock for a picnic dinner.

     So as you can see from the above pictures, the weather looked rather clear, didn't it?  And it stayed clear until the sun set.  We checked the chance of rain one last time at 9 PM and it was still holding steady at "30% chance of a light drizzle at midnight."  We thought we would be fine, so we piled into the tent, told ghost stories, and began the long process of trying to fall asleep in 85 degree heat.  

     My husband and kids managed just fine, but I need it cold to sleep, so I was still tossing and turning until the midnight hour rolled around, along with low rumbles of thunder.  I didn't think much of it; I was just thankful for the suddenly cool breeze making its way into the tent.  Then I heard the soft patter of rain on the top of our tent and I thought, "Oh good, this should lull me right to sleep."  Yes, I'm a fool.

     About 10 minutes later, all hell broke loose.  The rumbling thunder turned into cracks of lightning, the light breeze whipped itself into 75 mph gusts (yes, I looked it up after we survived this storm), and the soothing drizzle morphed into a flash flood and mudslide.  The wind ripped off the rain fly and our poor children woke up to buckets of rain dumping on them, watching their father valiantly brace the tent with his body to keep it from collapsing on us as their mother used the flashes of lightning to search frantically for the car keys in a flooded tent, all the while having to scream to communicate over the now deafening thunder. 

     We knew we had to make a run for it before we got swept away and we sacrificed everything in the tent.  Of course, we had set up the tent as far from the van as we could so that we could get a "more realistic" camping experience.  So we open the tent and our eldest promptly runs in the wrong direction, screaming her head off.  I'm holding our youngest and I still have no idea how I didn't fall.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to navigate a mudslide?  Granted, it was only shin-deep at the time, but that didn't make your footing any less slippery.  The eldest daughter figured out she had gone the wrong way and went shooting past me, still screaming, only to pull the classic Charlie Brown football fall into the mud.  She scrambled to her feet, took about 5 steps, and then face planted.  Now thoroughly coated in mud, she gets back up and yells at the lightning streaked sky, "I am NOT having any fun!!!" before continuing our dash for the safety of the van.

     My husband and I literally throw the girls into the van before getting in ourselves.  Everyone is drenched and shivering (because of course, the temperature had dropped 20 degrees in 20 minutes due to the fact that this was a cold front moving through), and my husband and I look at our mud coated children and then at each other before we both just burst out into hysterics.  The youngest looks at us like we've lost our minds and the eldest glares before declaring that she'll "never go camping again."  We just chuckled at her and moved the van to higher ground.  Just in time, too, as the road washed out next to our camping loop and the rest of the campers were stuck until road crews could clear the mud the next morning.  So yeah, weather is not something you mess around with in a canyon.

     Anyways, below is the sunrise after the storm.  So tranquil and deceiving, isn't it?  Seriously though, what an adventure!  I'd do it again in a heartbeat so that I could have this story to tell to my grandkids one day.  And don't worry, our oldest daughter asked just this past weekend when we could go camping again, so I think it's safe to say she hasn't suffered any longterm psychological trauma.

     And also, since we were so close to it, we stopped by Cadillac Ranch about 10 miles west of Amarillo.  It was definitely unique and worth a stop if you find yourself in the area, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it (unless you have spray paint...then by all means, follow your criminal fancy).

The UK and Paris

When my husband and I first married, we had planned on a honeymoon to Thailand.  The dates and lodgings were picked out and the activities were eagerly anticipated; all we had to do was hope we could book a flight that wouldn't interfere with our upcoming move.  Unfortunately, the Air Force had other plans for our newlywed stage and threw us a curveball, giving us less than one week's notification to report to Oklahoma (and only 2 days before Thanksgiving to boot).  We spent our Turkey Day cramped in a tiny hotel room on base in the middle of America, lamenting our lot in life while trying desperately to cook an adequate meal on my favorite holiday.  It snowed that day though, so in my mind, all was absolved at the time and we promised each other we'd take a honeymoon one day.

     Fast forward 7 years and we've had two moves, two kids, and no honeymoon.  Not much of a shock really...life can get in the way sometimes.  With another imminent move on the horizon that will put us even farther away from both sets of grandparents, and with the girls finally being more independent/pleasant to be around, we realized that this would be the perfect year to go somewhere with just the two of us.  We talked it over with the grandparents and they readily agreed to watch the kids, so we booked a flight to London and held our breaths (no vacation is safe in the military, regardless of approved leave, until you set foot on a commercial flight, ha!).

     Now, I had very carefully selected our international flight.  It was a direct flight that left at 6 PM Eastern local time and arrived at 6:45 AM London time with 8.5 hours in the air.  I figured that would be perfect timing to take a sleeping pill as we got on the plane so that we could be knocked out for the duration of the flight and wake up refreshed, free of jet lag and ready to hit the ground running in England.  I'm sure you've already guessed that this is not the way it worked out.  

     As soon as the plane took off, a toddler began to scream.  Normal enough...most kids don't handle takeoff well, and I had ear plugs along with both Dramamine and Unisom in my system, so it shouldn't be a problem, I thought.  I felt pity for the mother who was traveling alone with him; I had been there, too, after all.  However, two hours into the flight, the kid still hadn't even slowed down.  Three hours in, my patience was beginning to wear thin, as was everyone else's.  Six hours in, the little one still hadn't figured out that we weren't all in the process of dying and his little lungs were holding remarkably strong.  I'm pretty sure I heard sobs coming from other parts of the cabin and I know that I wasn't the only one who had the "brilliant" plan of drugging themselves for an overnight flight.  Needless to say, a whole lot of zombies stumbled out of the plane and into the terminal after 8.5 hours of a cacophonous hell.  The little boy stopped screaming the moment the wheels hit the runway and happily scampered down the aisles.  You can imagine how many daggers were being thrown his way.

     Anyhow, we made it from Gatwick into London at some point midmorning (the memory is a bit foggy for some reason) and realized that we couldn't check into our AirBnB for another 4 hours.  We stumbled around the Hoxton area with all of our luggage, generally wreaking havoc on the sidewalks and stopping at every other cafe for another coffee, before we finally found a large, open field and dropped all of our stuff in the only bit of shade.  I promptly fell asleep with my backpack still on and ignored the footfalls by my head (we had managed to position ourselves on the curve of a makeshift track, but we too tired and out of it to move).     

     After a two hour nap out in public, we woke up and were happy to finally check in and shed our baggage before attempting to navigate the streets and underground.  I was immediately struck (figuratively and almost literally) at how different and slightly challenging it is to adapt to an alternate flow of traffic than one is used to.  Initially, I found myself inwardly cursing the people who, in my mind, were very clearly walking on the "wrong side" of the sidewalk and therefore continuously bumping into me.  I was just about to grumble something about the idiocy of Londoners when I stopped dead in my tracks, the cold wave of shame overcoming me as I finally figured out that I was the moron.  Head hung, I shuffled to the left side of the pavement and we proceeded to the nearest pub for our first pint of the vacation.

     My embarrassment thoroughly drowned in ale, we left the pub and I chose to ignore the helpful pointers painted on the ground at each crosswalk, promptly stepping out in front of an iconic red, double decker.  So, a tip for traveling in London: heed the signs; the locals clearly don't want to be scraping tourists off the road on a daily basis and have taken extensive measures to keep you safe, but they can't help you if you deliberately choose to be drunk or illiterate.  Fight your traffic instincts and trust the Brits.

Some intersections even had crossing guards for us bumbling tourists.

     We spent the rest of our time in London doing a few of the normal tourist things: high tea at Fortnum and Mason, ride on the top of a double decker, pay to pee at any toilet you come across, etc.  We were also sure to "mind the gap," celebrate the Queen's birthday, and eat plenty of fish and chips.  Here is a selection of a few favorite images from our time in this large city...

Tower Bridge.  Yes, I jumped out in front of traffic.  No, my husband wasn't surprised.

Early morning light in King's Cross Station.

Hyde Park in the morning...we were there later on 4/20 a little before 5 in the afternoon and were genuinely confused by the massive crowds and blue haze hanging over it.

     After three days in London, we made our way to King's Cross to catch a train into Paris.  I'm a bit of francophile and couldn't stand the thought of being only a couple hours away and missing the infamous city of light.  We arrived in the early afternoon, checked into our AirBnB closet (seriously, I've seen closets larger than this "flat" we stayed in), and immediately ventured out in search of wine, cheese, and a baguette.  

     Making our way to the Eiffel Tower to catch the sunset and enjoy a picnic dinner, I couldn't help but be floored at just how stunning this city is.  The architecture is drop dead gorgeous, the flora is verdant and lush, and the sound of the French language is simply music to my ears. I love the European's appreciation of the simple things and how they can stroll to most places they need to get, and Paris really highlights that slower way of life.  Every meal we ate was spectacular, the weather couldn't have been better, and the locals were actually extremely tolerant of the tourists (I was expecting the quintessential "rude" Parisian, but encountered none).

     The highlights of this segment of our trip were simple: the picnic in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, walking along the Seine with some of the world's best ice cream (Berthillon, if you're interested), and climbing to the second highest point in Paris to take in the city from above.  Below are a few shots from this gorgeous city.

Be still, my heart.

The Sacred Heart Basilica.  We had climbed to the top of the tower to get the above shot of the Eiffel Tower.

When I live in Europe, I will have a candy apple red moped.

I just found this hilarious.

Europeans love their dogs.  They are everywhere.

You'll see a few "strange" shots like this.  I was experimenting with a film that turns green to purple.  I kind of fell in love with it.

The Eiffel Tower at night on that Lomo Purple film.

     After Paris, we hopped back on another train to head north up to Edinburgh.  This was the part of the trip that I was most excited about.  While I enjoy exploring cities from time to time, it's rugged nature that I live for.  Our plan was to stay in Edinburgh for 2 days, then rent a car for the rest of our stay and venture into the countryside of Scotland.  On a quick side note, I absolutely love taking trains to get around.  It's so nice to be able to sit back and relax or read or simply watch the world go by outside your window without having to worry about navigating or traffic.  It's an aspect of Europe that I really wish had caught on in the United States.

     Once in Edinburgh, we encountered our first drizzle of the vacation as we made our way to an apartment in the historic Dean Village.  Our temporary residence was perfectly cozy and so much bigger than the two places we had stayed in prior so far (and it even had shampoo and toilet paper!), complete with a record player, a window seat, and tea.  My husband busted out laughing when he got out of the shower and found me curled up under a blanket in the window seat, wearing a French beret and sipping tea while watching the rain fall and listening to Bach on the record player.  He thought I had died and he had walked into my version of heaven.  He wasn't sure if he'd even be able to get me out of the flat, but eventually we both needed food and so we hit the streets.

     Now, while Scotland is technically a part of the United Kingdom, they definitely do things a bit differently up there.  For one, the Scots do not put helpful advice on their roads directing you which way to check for your impending death by automobile.  They take a far more "fock you, Sassenach," approach and let Darwinism run its course.  Where the English are polished and proper and all things refined, the Scots are a bit more down to earth and rough around the edges in the best way.  I loved them and their lax attitudes (although I did prefer the English accent...I had a hard time understanding the harsh, grating Scottish one at times).

     Unfortunately, we only got one solid day to explore the capital before I fell quite ill.  We had to cancel our castle tour and extend our stay in Edinburgh while I dealt with a high fever and terrible sore throat and migraine.  I insisted on at least walking a nearby path and am so glad that we did.  It was one of the most beautiful walks I've ever been on...old moss-covered stone walls, wild vines tumbling over the path, the sounds of a tumbling brook and birdsong.  It was so peaceful and wonderful.

So. Many. Stairs.

     I didn't take a ton of shots around the city of Edinburgh...I think I was rather burnt out from shooting the streets of London and Paris quite honestly.  After recovering from the worst of my sickness, we attempted to rent a car in Edinburgh and failed spectacularly.  We ended up having to catch a train to Glasgow in order to rent a car for three days at an exorbitant cost.  So here's another "pro" tip: rent a car far in advance.  When I had checked on prices a couple months out, it was just over $100 for a week.  By the time we got there, we paid over $500 for 3 days.  I had gotten so bogged down with booking trains, lodgings, and things to do, that I completely forgot to confirm the car rental back in February and it cost us big time unfortunately.

     So moving on from our financial blunder, we hopped in (on opposite sides than we're used to) and promptly began to narrowly avoid hitting curbs and pedestrians, randomly screaming in fear as we navigated roundabouts and nearly got crushed between a lorry and a rock face.  It seems we can't travel anywhere internationally without having some near death experience in a rental car.  Anyways, we decided to make our way up to the Isle of Skye and thanks to a tip from a local in Edinburgh, we landed a bed and breakfast in the tiny town of Plocktown just outside of the famous isle.  The sunset when we got there was breathtaking and I stood at the window for an hour just watching the colors change over the mountains and bay.

These bramble berry bushes were in full bloom while we were in Scotland.  They were everywhere.

Plocktown.

The water was surprisingly clear and turquoise.

     The next day, we drove around the entire Isle of Skye.  This island is beautiful in a raw and windswept way, but I was actually surprised and sad to see the impact tourism is having on this fragile area.  It made me feel guilty being there, so we ended up not staying long at some areas (like the Faerie Glen) and skipping other areas entirely so as to avoid adding our erosion to already degrading paths and ecosystems (such as the Faerie Pools).  We did hike to Coral Beach on accident (we were looking for the lighthouse, but failed) whose turquoise waters shocked us, and we had to dodge some bulls and wave at seals along the way.  We also went into Dunvegan Castle, ate at the only pub in a tiny town, and marveled at all the sheep and Highland cows along the way.

Just in case...

A few brave souls.  Their dog had sense though and refused to enter the frigid water.

The Faerie Glen

Dunvegan Castle.  The chief of the McLeod clan still lives there.

Coral Beach

Highland cow

Moonrise over the Cuillin Mountains.  I had my husband stop at the top of a cliff road with no shoulder so that I could climb on top of the car to get this shot.  This was also my first time shooting slide film (which is really tricky), but glad I took the chance.

     So there you have it...about a quarter of the shots I took and a rundown on the main points of interest in our travels.  If you made it this far, I salute you, as I know that I can be rather verbose.  While we were sad to leave, we were also more than ready to get home to our girls.  Of course, not even two weeks went by before I piled us back in the car and headed out to the second largest canyon in the U.S., Palo Duro.  I'll be getting all of those scans back next week, so check back then for some Southwestern photography and the full story of the camping trip that will go down in family history as the most exciting/terrifying one to date!

Winter Slump

     I've started this blog post at least half a dozen times over the past couple of months.  Something always comes up or the website crashes or I simply try to make it too detailed, so I end up throwing in the towel and trying again the next week (only to fail again...).  Anyways, I've decided to only post my favorites from the most recent two rolls I shot last week.  Maybe eventually I'll go back and fill in with my winter images (spoiler alert: there weren't a ton).

     First ones were made with my Olympus XA on Portra400 rated at 800 and pushed a stop.  I love the Olympus because it's really easy and small.  It's a point and shoot that's perfect for daily life.

I'm training for an open water swim in Lake Michigan at the end of summer, so this is my view twice a week until then.

I had walked upstairs on this morning, arms full of cleaning supplies and trash bins so that we could conquer the wreck of their bedroom, but had to run back downstairs to grab my camera for this shot before I "ruined" it by straightening the room up.

We're in the process of building a treehouse in the back corner of our yard.  Excited to get it done!

Daddy's little helper.  She was in charge of handing him the nails.

Childhood in a nutshell.

She's absolutely insane and drives me batty on a daily basis, but oh how I love her.

I hung this tire swing by myself during my husband's last deployment and the girls play on it pretty much everyday, asking me to push them and chase them, acting like a lion.  This is what my view looks like before I get too dizzy and have to call it quits.

And when Mommy gets tired, sister fills in.  You can see how well loved this tire swing is by the immense patch of dirt beneath it.

Horsin' around.

Selfies on film are always a trick.  Here we are on a rare date night.

I'd been dying to go to a local jazz club for years.

It was a jazz harpist...who knew such a thing existed?  It was awesome.

     The next images are only of my oldest daughter.  It's rare that I manage to get her to cooperate for the camera, so I'm very happy to have these.  These were shot on my Mamiya 645 1000s with Fuji 400H.  I rated the film at 200 and shot wide open at f1.9, so several of them were not tack sharp.  It doesn't bother me on most of them, although I was kind of bummed to discover that I preferred them converted to black and white.  I suppose I just prefer Portra for skin tones and Fuji for nature.

This is her go-to face for pictures.  I have no idea why.

Here it is again, but softer and more nostalgic I think.

I see this expression all the time.  She's not actually upset...it's her deep in thought look.  This kid is already pondering very deep stuff.  Just the other day, she said "Mommy, you know what I just realized?  That my world is different from everyone else's, just like yours is different from mine.  Because we're not the same person and we see different things."  My little philosopher-in-training.

Strong, confident, and gabbing away.

Her favorite treat is a push pop, just like mine was at her age.  Like mother, like daughter!

     So that's it for now!  We're leaving in a few days to go overseas for a couple of weeks...England, France, and Scotland.  I should receive lots of (hopefully) beautiful scans in May from that adventure and will share them then.  Fingers crossed for good weather while we're gone!

How We Roll

     Anyone who has been keeping up with this site may have noticed by now that we're fans of spur-of-the-moment travels.  I just simply can't resist the siren call of exploration and if I find even the slightest reason to hop in the car, you can bet I'm all over it.  I'm fortunate to have my kids and husband be just as willing to venture forth with me whenever possible.  It seems they've caught the travel bug as well and get just as excited as I do while discovering different parts of the country.

     A couple of weeks ago, an opportunity/excuse presented itself in the form of a gallery opening over in Johnson City, TN.  A shot I took in Seattle about a year ago had been selected for display and I felt compelled to be there and meet some of my fellow film photographers in the flesh that I had been chatting and sharing with for months in our online platform.  I quickly mapped out a route, my husband put in for leave, and the girls hadn't started their Montessori program for the year yet, so no hoops to jump through there.  We loaded up and set off for St. Louis.

     I've spent the past year reminiscing to my husband about the awesomeness of the City Museum in St. Louis.  If you've never visited this place, it's very difficult to describe and probably harder to grasp just what exactly it is, but I'll try.  It's essentially a construction site that's also a playground filled with hidden tunnels and slides that are made out of iron or trees, you can crawl through the walls and under the floors and up in the ceiling, there's a 10 story cave system in the center of the warehouse (most of this place is contained inside of an old converted shoe factory), there's a carnival-type thing on the roof, and there are no rules and a million ways to hurt yourself.  It's a kid's and young-at-heart adult's dream come true.

     Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures this time around...I learned my lesson from the first visit and knew that my camera could/would be damaged and/or hold me back from all the fun, so it stayed in the hotel room.  The girls were thrilled to return and my husband spent the first hour in shock by the glory that is this place (he was deployed last year and had missed out), but he came to his senses eventually to slide and shimmy his way through all the fun.  If you ever find yourself in St. Louis, do NOT miss out on this experience!  Anyways, I took very few pictures on this stop since we had been here before, but here's an obligatory Arch shot:

Just after taking a picture of the Arch, my youngest announced that she had to go potty right away, so here we are hustling back to the restaurant we had picked out for dinner.

     After St. Louis, we made our way to Columbus, OH for an overnight pit stop.  We were lucky our hotel had an indoor pool and the girls went for a quick dip before bed that night.  In the morning, we checked out and drove to the German Village for a coffee and a stroll around the neighborhood before our impending longest leg of the trip.  We chose a very authentic bakery that presented a German menu we could hardly interpret and were forced to point blindly at our choice (the employees did not speak much English either).  I was shocked to discover that I had managed to order a coffee with a chocolate cookie and heavy cream in it, but delighted in the sugar rush all the same.  We then walked around the cobblestone streets taking in the European architecture and smiling at the flower boxes gracing the windows.  It made me yearn for our next assignment and wish fervently that next year at this time, I'd be walking streets in Germany itself.

When you're a photographer and find a gorgeous pocket of setting sunlight, you pluck your kid out of whatever they were doing and stick them in that spot.  Here's my youngest, gazing longingly back at the pool she had just been enjoying.

     I had convinced my husband that it would be a good idea to tack on a couple of hours to our drive that day so we could explore the Amish countryside.  I had really hoped to find some covered bridges and go on a buggy ride, but I was thwarted on both accounts.  The buggy rides had been cancelled for the year due to construction and the covered bridges were about another hour out of the way.  We stopped for lunch at a bier garten and our pony-horse was fortunate that a dog's bakery was next door, so he got a special treat (and who are we kidding...he got some burger, too).

Excuse my husband's expression...for some reason, he didn't trust what the girls were up to behind me.

     We finally got back on track and flew through Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland.  There is some absolutely gorgeous country in that region.  We drove through the Appalachians at sunset and it was simply breathtaking.  We were on a mission for D.C., however, so we couldn't stop to drink in the view.  Finally, after almost 12 hours on the road that day, we made it to our hotel in the dark and the rain, and sacked out.  The next day, we took on the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the Air and Space Museum, and the National Mall.

I have no idea what they're doing here.

     After spending a day in D.C., we drove along the coast down to Virginia Beach.  We stopped at Assateague National Seashore to look at the wild ponies and play at the beach.  This had the added benefit of tuckering the girls out, so we were able to drive straight through to Virginia Beach.  After checking in there, we raced down to the boardwalk to catch the sunset and see the epic (sorry, it's just the right word) statue of Neptune.  We then ate an extremely overpriced so-so dinner.  In hindsight, we should've saved that money and rented one of the quad bikes to ride around the boardwalk and settled for fast food afterwards.  Oh well.  Live and learn from our mistakes!

I find her posture hilarious in this...future blackmail.

There were horseshoe crab shells littering the beach.

Wanted to make herself into a mermaid before we left.

I told you he was epic.

And huge.

I also got to fulfill a childhood dream and visit Jamestown :-)

     That concluded our eastward trek and we started back west, driving through the Appalachians and into the Tri-City.  The morning before the gallery opening, we took the girls on a short hike to a waterfall and did some bouldering as well (the girls are surprisingly good at climbing).  We ate our packed picnic before heading into downtown Johnson City to meet and mingle with other film photographers.  It was so great to meet these people that up until this point I had only chatted with through a screen!  After that short visit, we started the slog back to Oklahoma.

P.S. This place is in Forrest City off of I-40 about an hour west of Memphis, and it's incredible.  We stop every time we visit my husband's family.

     That concludes our most recent road trip.  I found myself a bit down after getting home because I realize it'll be a long time before we go anywhere again.  We may venture out for Christmas to New Mexico, however, and we're saving up for a big trip out to the West Coast in the late spring.  I also realized on this trip that I'm not shooting enough in general.  I saw so much that I wish I had taken a picture of, and I'm not sure why I didn't.  Maybe it's because we were a bit more rushed.  Anyways, I plan on shooting more this fall and updating again sooner rather than later!

Space City

     As I've mentioned before, my eldest daughter has decided she wants to be an astrophysicist or an astronaut when she grows up.  We had assumed this would just be a phase, but we're rounding 3 years of her proclaiming this (and she turns 5 next month...), so we're taking her seriously and encouraging her in any way we can.  Thus, we signed her up for the last space camp of the summer down in Houston and she was over the moon (hehe)!  She had an absolute blast and our youngest enjoyed the one-on-one time with her Mommy and Daddy.  I shot a wide combination of cameras and film, from HP5 in my new Holga, to Portra 400 and Color Implosion in my Leica, to expired Delta 400 in my Olympus XA.

This was some Color Implosion that I was forced to expose in order to get it out of my camera...the film strip wasn't taped to the inside of the canister, so it literally was just loose in my camera and I had to open the back to pull it out.  Oh well!  Made for some interesting color shifts and it was supposed to look retro anyway.

It's a miracle no one got pooped on...

Seabrook Waffle Company has THE best waffles in the world.

It was National Roller Coaster Day while we were here, so we got to ride this wooden one for half price!

I had never seen these bushes before, and they stole my heart.

YES.

She liked it, too!

She was as happy as a kid in a candy shoppe.

A new friend.

Midair battle captured on a Holga.  You'll notice in these next few frames that there are some splotches.  That's due to the fact that I foolishly skipped Photoflo at the end and our hard water dried on the negatives.

Double exposures are easy peasy on the Holga!

Switching now to the Olympus XA with expired Delta 400.

"I'm gonna win, I'm gonna win, I'm gonna win!"

He's the greatest dog in the world.  No, I'm not biased.

     Surprisingly, it took me almost 2 months to get through 15 shots on my medium format camera, so here a few images from Fourth of July in Florida and crystal digging in NW Oklahoma a few weeks ago!  It seems that I haven't given Ektar enough attention...these colors are so punchy and fun!

     I've got another roll of Ektar loaded in the Mamiya, and even took a couple of frames on it while in Texas, so I'm determined to shoot through it faster this time.  We were thinking of going to Colorado for Labor Day weekend, but then remembered that we have the Air Force Ball a couple of weekends after that, so I'm not sure expenses will allow it :-(  I'm sure I'll find some stuff to shoot though, especially since it's finally supposed to cool down a bit!

Flops and Flips

     We've been taking it relatively easy since coming back from that long road trip, but we'll be on the road again this weekend!  In the meantime, I've been pushing myself to shoot and develop more black and white film.  I put my first roll of actual FRESH Tri-X through my Leica, but then managed to botch the processing.  I diluted the stock solution too much, I believe, and also let it develop for too long, so the results were quite grainy and uneven.  I also screwed up the fixer somehow, but don't ask me how.  I shot through this roll last weekend when we went around northwestern Oklahoma exploring a cave and canyon and digging up selenite crystals.  Here are some shots from that adventure...

The girls have really taken to bike riding (yes!), but our youngest is still too tiny to pedal well on her own.  I asked my husband for his belt and came up with this fun little contraption.  He was not pleased, but she sure was and hey, it got us around the block before the sun completely set :-)

They make these little "nests" all over the house to read.

Last day of gymnastics.

     After scanning in this roll and considering a resulting cry fest, I questioned why I even bother with developing black and white film.  Maybe I should just always shoot color and convert in post like my husband suggests.  It would save me a lot of heartache (and spare myself and family from the stench of chemicals).  Alas, I was forced to load up another roll in a last ditch attempt for a self portrait.  You see, one of my images has been selected for a gallery and the artist's picture is requested to accompany it.  I truly had no image that I felt would be adequate, so I loaded up my Olympus XA (since it's my only camera with a self-timer) with a roll of Delta 3200 that's been sitting in my fridge for months.  I haven't shot it because silly me let it go through the airport x-ray scanners THREE times (anything over ISO 800 shouldn't go through those things).  Therefore, I fully expected this to be a complete and utter disaster as well.

     The funny thing with the tiny Olympus is that you can't control the shutter speed.  All you can set is the ISO (which maxes out at 800) and the aperture.  For these shots, I set the camera up on a stool, clicked the aperture to f4 and maxed out the ISO, and saw that even then, I would only have a shutter speed of 1/8 of a second.  I decided to embrace the inevitable blur and let the girls have a dance party after we took a few serious shots.  Also to be noted, I tried a different style of photography for the ones with my girls; I wanted it to look serious, yet fun and caught on the fly by a stranger.  I think it worked and I want to try more like this.  First up though, was my self-portrait.

I was shocked at how well it came out.  This camera is so tiny and plastic and the film was questionable at best.  I also thanked myself once again for painting our bedroom half black and half white :-p

My yin and yang.

     Naturally, after developing this roll (and successfully, woot woot!) and seeing the results after scanning in the negatives, I'm itching to shoot more black and white.  It felt good to just let go and burn through this roll in less than 10 minutes.  I wasn't expecting anything good to come out of it (and actually didn't even shoot the entire roll...), so these were a fun surprise.  My next batch of scans won't come in until the end of the month, so I'll be signing off until then!

2000+ Miles

     A few times each year, we make what we call the "grandparent circuit."  It usually consists of an 8 hour jaunt over to the Memphis area, then another 8 hours down to Pensacola.  This time, however, my in-laws were on a road trip of their own so we decided at the last minute to go down to Austin, TX and then over to Florida.  When I say "last minute," I mean that we didn't even know if we'd be able to leave Oklahoma for the 4th of July weekend until less than 24 hours before our departure.  My husband had a couple of highly critical flights to complete that neither of us thought would happen, yet lo and behold, they both came into fruition and he aced them (as usual ;-)).

     I therefore had to frantically pack, clean the house, book hotels, and plan out an itinerary for this impromptu excursion.  I had been looking for an excuse to visit Austin, and this seemed to fit the bill.  We left after my husband came home from work on a Friday and immediately drove right into grid lock traffic.  To top off getting stuck in rush hour, an emergency signal came on over the radio informing us that a tornado was forming due west of our position and we were directly in the path.  We got off onto some back country roads and raced through tiny towns, trying to outrun the wall of greenish clouds fast approaching.  Nothing like living in Oklahoma...

     We managed to successfully thwart death by twister and arrived at our hotel in Austin at midnight, which is way past our bedtime.  We all crashed and didn't wake up until after 8 the next morning.  I hadn't managed to come up with any rock solid plans for our day in Austin, so we ended up just driving to the main downtown area to park and explore.  The girls were actually quite difficult that day; complaining about walking, the heat, their imminent starvation, etc.  They're usually real troopers and far more determined than the average child to embark on questionable adventures with me, so it did kind of bother me.  I can't blame them though...it was stupid hot (even the locals were commenting on how bloody awful and unusual it was) and we were just kind of wandering with no clue as to where to go.  The biggest hits of the day were swimming in the hotel pool and eating ice cream for dinner :-)

First pit stop of our walking/shuffling/sweating journey.

This place served up the most amazing grilled cheese sandwiches.  The girls refused to eat them.  Like I said, they weren't themselves that day...

They decided they couldn't survive without pizza.

So much graffiti in this town!

They were over the day by this point.

I think he may have been every 80s kid's hero.

I don't know what that light spot is...it's on a number of my images unfortunately.

I love the flora of the Midwest and Southwest.

And I love cities that have easily accessible bike rentals!

Finally feeling like their usual silly selves.

     Our original plan after visiting Austin was to drive to New Orleans on Sunday, ride a trolley that afternoon, then snag some beignets on Monday morning before making the last short leg into Pensacola.  However, we were approaching New Orleans a bit after 3 on Sunday and my husband felt like he could make it the whole way.  Thus, I canceled our hotel reservation and we set a record for driving with the girls: 12 hours in one day.  Yeah, it was rough.  But we were determined to get to see my brother-in-law and his son before they left and let the cousins play on the beach and all go to dinner together.

     My husband got to spend the 4th of July with us for the first time in 4 years!  He's always been deployed or on some other kind of training/mission and considering this is his favorite holiday, it's been pretty rough on him.  I know he was relieved to finally eat some grilled out food, drink a couple of beers, and set things on fire.  We also went to a bigger downtown fireworks show, but the playground stole it for the girls.  It was a pretty awesome playground; tons of climbing stuff which is right up their alley.  

     There were a couple of blasts from my past on this particular visit.  The Blue Angels were having their annual beach show, so we went to their rehearsal.  The girls weren't that impressed...it was too loud for them, but they happily stayed and played in the sand while we all oohed and aahed at the jets.  I also got overly excited that my favorite goofy golf course had reopened the week before we got there.  So many happy childhood memories came from that place, so I was thrilled to be able to take the girls there.  They're pretty terrible at golf, but it runs in the family.

With her cousin and grandmother in the Gulf...she's become quite a little fish.

I love the Blues at least...

No one is allowed in the water while the show is going on.

Making her point.

I <3 pelicans!

I even had the privilege of meeting up with my running coach from so long ago.  This man trained me so well that I broke multiple state records and earned an All American title.  He's still incredibly active and is such an inspiration to me!

21 strokes in, but she finally made it!

She missed...

Sparkler anxiety...I mean, fun.

FIRE

They had their faces painted (for free!) downtown prior to the big fireworks show.

Pat the pony!

They're big fans of NASA and snocones :-)

I love her.

This picture means so much to me.  Here are my littlest loves, enjoying my favorite treat (petit fours) from my favorite childhood bakery, on the dock where we used to launch our boat when I was their age.

     Our stay was fairly brief and packed, but we got to see lots of family and friends, eat delicious grilled out foods, and enjoy some classic summer fun.  We topped off the vacation with 14.5 hours of driving straight home from Florida to Oklahoma.  Yeah, we're nuts.  Yet it was surprisingly easy.  Next up, down to Houston next month for a week so that my oldest can go to her first space camp!

A Few Shots I've Been Waiting For

     A couple of months ago, I put my first roll through an Olympus XA that my dad had given me earlier this year.  I wasn't too crazy over the results and was uninspired to pick it up again, but I woke up yesterday just itching to shoot AND develop.  I found one last roll of expired Tri-X pan 400 in the fridge and thought "oh, what the heck."  I popped it into the Olympus and decided to burn through the 24 exposures to see if I could come away with anything that would encourage me to pursue shooting more with this little clamshell camera.

     I remembered that I was out of fixer and also knew that I hadn't been completely pleased with how my Ilfotech HC developer was performing with the Tri-X films I had developed thus far, so I ran out to the camera store and picked up some Kodak D-76 developer and fixer powders.  I refused to spend $20 on two empty gallon containers they sold there, so I went home and dumpster dove in our own bin, only to discover that my husband apparently has a secret passion for crushing milk cartons with Hulk-like intensity.  I was therefore forced to finally utilize my heavy glass moonshine jug for something other than collecting dust and memories of the South and I dumped out hummingbird nectar to free up another bottle for my fixer (guess we'll be skipped on this year's migration...).

     Now that all the materials were acquired, I just had to shoot.  The girls had dressed themselves that day and they had actually done pretty well, so there was no need to change them.  I made it my mission to capture some frames that show who they are individually and as sisters.  I can't believe how much they've grown in these short 3-4 years; they're both officially out of the babyish looking stage and are really starting to resemble actual kids/mini-adults (there's a chance this happened earlier and my mommy goggles just refused to let me see it though).  I love these three shots because they embody their personalities so well: my sweet rose with her kind eyes and warmth, and my little bird with her quirks and intensity.  I'm sure these don't look like much to a stranger, but to me, these are images I'll cherish forever because they represent my children in the way that I'll always remember them at this stage in their life.

A Trek Through Quebec

     A month ago, I flew to Quebec to take some time for myself.  I do this about once a year so that I can focus on photography, writing, and generally outlining my future.  I always leave my husband and kids at home and spend every day thinking it's selfish, but I really do come back refreshed and with a better grasp of who I am.  This time was the hardest though; as your kids get older, they actually become far more interesting and fun to be around.  Between my oldest daughter now aspiring to be an astronaut or astrophysicist and my youngest beginning to express an interest, and talent, in constructing complex buildings out of pretty much anything you give her, I genuinely enjoy helping them grow and having actual conversations with them about their thoughts.

     So it was with a somewhat heavy heart, and tired eyes, that I left for Dallas at 5 in the morning and arrived at the airport almost 4 hours later.  My first flight did not go well.  I knew that I would be on a small commuter jet and was aware that those aircrafts are often short on carry-on luggage space, so I was listening the entire time prior to boarding whether they needed some people to check their bags (and was prepared to do so).  No such announcement was made, even though all the flights around us were asking for volunteers.

     As they started boarding, I chose to wait until the end of my zone's line slowly lurched forward before presenting my ticket.  It wasn't a full flight, so I thought everything would be fine.  Nevertheless, by the time I got on and found my seat, there were no more overhead bins available and while my luggage fit under the seat in front of me, my neighbor complained that it encroached upon his foot space by *literally* two inches.  The flight attendant gave me a nasty look and offered no aid or advice, so I had to go to the front of the plane and request that they reopen the hatch to check my bag.  No one was happy, and I learned that it is worth it to stand in line with all of your luggage prior to boarding.

     After landing in Montreal, I went through customs and was interrogated by a border patrol agent.  He was not impressed that I was traveling by myself with no purpose other than to write and take pictures, and he let me know that he thought I was foolish.  I pointed out that my final destination is considered one of the safest cities in the world, but he just glared at me for so long I was starting to get concerned that he may be able to prevent me from going further in my journey.  Finally, with a swish of his hand and a shake of his head, he sent me on my way.  By this point, I was starting to doubt my preconceived notion that Canadians were a friendly lot.

     However, I was then ushered to another counter behind which was a jovial man eager to help me in whatever way he could.  I explained the carry-on-turned-checked-baggage situation and his face fell; he was convinced it was lost.  "I am so very sorry, Amanda Jean, but I don't see a record of your bag on this list."  All I could think was, "well at least I have my camera gear, journal, books, and a jacket."  Thankfully, one of his coworkers came to the rescue and pulled up a different roster...lo and behold, my bag had been transferred as expected!  By this point, I was so ready to get to my apartment and sleep that I hardly remember the last flight.

    Once I was in the unexpectedly small Quebec airport, I grabbed my bags and was funneled into a taxi line to drive me downtown.  It was at this point that I realized English is not particularly prevalent in the Quebec province.  Now, I studied French for 8 years and minored in it.  I pursued translation studies, was the top in my class in classical French pronunciation, and even passed the hardest class of my college years: Analyzing Medieval Tales in Middle French (it's essentially like trying to read Shakespeare in Olde English, but in your second language), in which no English was permitted throughout the semester.  But that "Quebecois" dialect is a whole other beast...the driver turned to me and spoke, and I caught not a word of it.

     Thankfully, my reading comprehension is intact and I inadvertently managed to fool a number of shopkeepers into believing that I was Parisienne.  It's always shocking to foreigners that an American can speak another language without sounding like a hick.  On my second full day there though, it took me awhile to figure out why the locals would immediately respond to me in English even when I had addressed them in French.  I finally caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and realized that I was wearing my NASA shirt.  Whoops.  The next day went back to normal and I could self-consciously converse in halting classical French again.

     The sun would rise very early there, and my biology has always woken me up with those first rays, regardless of where I am in the world.  So that first day, I was up before 5 AM and in desperate need of coffee.  I stumbled down to a Starbucks on the corner (very millennial American, I know...) to get my bearings and plan out my stay.  My loft did not have WIFI, so this became a morning ritual, although I switched up the coffee shops.  The first day was a bit drizzly and quite chilly, so I hung around the area where I was staying, St. Roch.  It was moreso a business district, but they still had some gems of architecture and delicious food.

     My place was also conveniently located right next door to the province's largest toy store, Benjo.  During one of the heavier drizzles of that first day, I ducked in to peruse the store.  It was filled with every childhood delight imaginable: building toys, candy, clothes, science kits, dolls, books, etc.  I spent close to an hour looking around trying to pick something out for the girls.  When the rain finally  let up and I was ready to head back out, I went to the back exit and promptly walked right into one of my most embarrassing moments in years...

     You see, I was walking towards an entrance/exit I hadn't used before, so I thought nothing of a ramp with guardrails that I found myself descending.  I remembered that our local Toys R Us store employed the same method, so I tried to inconspicuously duck out.  However, I noticed with growing concern that the door in front of me was far smaller than it had looked at the top of the ramp.  I knew by this point that this door was not intended for full-grown adults, but pride and mortification prevented me from backtracking to the snickers I could hear behind me.  So, I crawled out of the double, pint-sized doors, on all fours.  I thought the shame was over, but unfortunately for me, this lovely Benjo store has a frog as a mascot with a giant statue of him sitting out front of these doors, facing the street.  He happily croaked the news of my departure to a very busy sidewalk crowd, who then all turned to stare at this bumbling tourist still in cow position on the pavement.  Oh, and yes, there were two full-size doors, intended for adults, on either side of the children's entrance.

     The next morning found me in Vieux Quebec, and the architecture was just stunning.  I've always been enamored with Europe, so this city was the perfect choice for me to bathe in its influence while avoiding jet lag (and much greater expense).  I was not prepared for just how many stairs are in the city.  I know that sounds silly, but I truly was caught off guard.  I even took a number of wrong turns which led to innumerable unnecessary steps to climb.  Luckily I'm in decent shape, but I was averaging 8-10 miles per day with about half of that being uphill.  I was wiped out by the end of each day.  It was worth it though; I just took some breaks and strolled along.

     The pictures will hopefully do justice to the beauty of the town.  It was so fun to explore those hidden secrets that are found in all cities.  From tiny kittens peaking out of windows to old steeples jutting up into the sky, Quebec was gorgeous.  I was pleased to find that the locals are indeed quite friendly, and I tasted my first true macaron...I can sadly never go back to the ones found in the States.  I also sampled the famous local cuisine called "poutine" and I cannot recommend it.  It consisted of french fries smothered in gravy and cheese curds.  It was disgusting to me and I couldn't finish it, but I know that many people love it.

     So without further yammering, here's a sample of images that I love.  You can see that it was spring while I was there and I must've caught the blooms perfectly.  Everywhere I looked were these magnificent explosions of pinks and purples.  I took a total of only 138 frames, and 100 of them were "keepers."  By comparison, I took over 1,000 in Iceland with my digital camera and came away with about 100 good images; film just makes you slow down and nail a scene the first time.  These were all shot on Portra 400 with my Leica M6 or Fuji 400H with my Mamiya 645.  

A Day In The Life

     Last weekend, I decided to keep my camera on me and document our day.  I wanted to play with some expired Tri-X 400 from the 70s, so wasn't expecting much from the results.  It didn't help that while developing the film in the darkroom/bathroom, I realized that I could see far too well even though I had blocked the bottom of the door.  Turns out, the laundry room light had been left on and was coming through the connecting vent.  Thus, the film was exposed as can be seen in the images, and I lost about half of the roll.  I also didn't use my usual development method since I was in a hurry; I typically use a 1:31 solution and double the development time, but since I was pressed for time I had to do 1:15 and 5 minutes in accordance with the massive deviation chart for my film, and I did not like the amount of grain that resulted.  Oh well, next time.

    It was a Sunday when I decided to lug my camera around all day (it's actually tiny, so it's not a burden at all).  I made my favorite breakfast, Monkey Bread, and we ate out on our new deck before heading out to church.  While we are atheists, I insist that we be members of a Unitarian Universalist congregation so that the girls can get a religious education.  It is my firm belief that one can only truly accept and love another person of a different background if you understand them.  After church, we went to brunch where the girls behaved very poorly and therefore lost out on eating at the cupcake store next door, much to their chagrin.  We then visited their school garden, came home to play in the backyard and take pictures of each other, and then sacked out. It was a fairly typical weekend for us, full of relaxation and family time.

Air Show Fun

     We found ourselves, sans hearing protection, at an air show this past weekend.  I popped in some new-to-me Lomo F2 in my Leica and expired TMAX 400 in my Mamiya.  As usual, I had a number of people come up to me to admire/inquire about my gear...I do look like a youngish person toting around relics, I suppose.  I happily explained that film most certainly is not dead and that yes, there are in fact a number of local places that you can still turn in a roll of good old Kodak.  I developed and scanned the TMAX over the weekend (and discovered a light leak in the process), and then picked up the Lomo today from my local lab.  I was generally happy with the results overall.

     I absolutely love the way the blues were rendered on the Lomo film.  It had a slightly magenta cast in most lighting situations, but I do prefer magenta over green.  The sun was brutal and directly overhead so that did no favors for the images, but I still like the vast majority of the images I captured.  I have one more roll of Lomo and I think I'll save it either for golden hour, overcast conditions, or some indoor shots.

     I completely forgot to post a link to a featured artist interview I had last year with the founder of The Film Shooters Collective.  It addresses how I got into photography initially, my journey back to film, and what I look for when I'm out shooting.   So without further ado, here it is:

https://www.filmshooterscollective.com/analog-film-photography-blog/featured-photographer-march-mandy-thomascarey?rq=Mandy