And I need to get a CLA done on my Konica S2, the frame spacing this roll was all over the place!

Portra 160 pulled to is0 100, develop and scan by your local walgreens store…

Lately I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with my photography, where I want to go with it, but most importantly how do I stand out from the crowd?  Interest in photography has just exploded over the past 5 to 6 years; so many people have picked up cameras and are doing their thing. It’s hard for an individual to be heard, especially if you want to make photography a career.  The buzz word for that is to differentiate. Look around the web, there are thousands of photography blogs and websites that will teach you the nuts and bolts, the basics of the craft, then it’s up to you to do something.  Say something, find your voice, your style.  I promise this is going somewhere!  These thoughts kind of tie into some photos I recently shot:

Upon one of my searches around the wormhole known as today’s internet, I  somehow came across information on Futuro houses, Modernistic homes that were built in the late 60′s -  early 70′s as a way to create a mass marketable home that could easily be built and placed on any terrain around the world.  Then due to the gas shortages of the 70′s that made it difficult to manufacture the plastics that were used in the Futuro’s construction, the homes were taken off the market.  Around 50 of them still exist worldwide…and one of those 50 just happened to be off of Hwy 276 in Rockwall.

It’s pretty amazing that the outer shell has stood up to the elements for all these years, but I’m using this as an example of differentiation, the designer that created the concept for this home was far out there from any other designer during that period.  You have to wonder if not for the Oil Crisis, would more of these homes exist?  Would we have whole neighborhoods of these?

But also I think what you could take from this is sometimes being different is just not enough, that when you’re way out there on the edge that it can become hard to sustain yourself, or maybe I’m just overthinking this whole thing just so I can post some photos of a UFO shaped house…

Bronica Gs-1 + Fuji 400H, develop and scan by the usual suspects…

and Loving it, loving it…this time in squares!

Kodak is still waving the flag of film high for everyone, dropping a ton of R&D dollars into developing its new line of Portra films, replacing the current NC (neutral contrast) and VC (Vivid Contrast) negative films.  There has been a major response among film photographers about how awesome this film is, and how it handles alot of different lighting situations, and how well it pushes, and a lot of other geeky stuff that I won’t go into.

So I went out and bought a pro-pack of 120….and I was disappointed.  Probably because I didn’t test it out like I should have, shooting some personal images, trying to find it’s nuances.  After hearing more and more praises of this new Portra, I decided to give it another go, this time in 35mm, so I could get it souped in one hour, and get quicker feedback….and I have to say, that I’m coming around.  It has such great color, and it doesn’t need to be overexposed as much as my current fav – Fuji 400H.

And for some reason, I seemed to be in a mood to shoot cars…

And I really liked the way that it handled these last two shots, dusk light against neon…

Keep doing what you’re doing Kodak!