California Love

I recently took a little 8 day vacation to California. If you didn't know, I'm located in Washington. I try to take a road trip down to California every year or so. The drive takes about 21 hours to get get to the Mexican border if you just stay on I5 (the main highway) or closer to 30 hours if you take the much more scenic route along the pacific coast. 

I've never taken the short route (by using the main highway) down to California so I decided on doing that this time. This trip included stops in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Diego and everything in between. 

As a photographer, my camera is almost permanently attached to my hip. I was able to take photos of the Golden Gate Bridge, Disneyland, Universal Studios, the San Diego nightlife and a family's baptism. Overall it was a successful trip and a good opportunity to get away from my life in Washington. I hope that everyone who reads this is able to take some time once in awhile to get away from what they're used to and enjoy a change of scenery. You never know what you may discover!

Long Exposure

I've been fascinated by long exposure photography for quite sometime but only recently, have I spent the time to experiment with it.  

To do this, I purchased the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 and some Fotodiox Wonderpana filters that were made to work on this lens because it is very different from other typical lenses.  

Long exposures makes you think outside the box as the world around the subject typically changes as you are taking the photo.  

Since exposures can last minutes at a time, things such as clouds and flowing water typically takes on very different forms than what we are used to seeing.  Clouds seem like they are stretched across the sky while flowing water takes on an ethereal calmness.  

Long exposure photography is something that every photographer should experiment with as it taps into a different sense of creativity.

The Upper Left USA

The decision to rebrand has been in my mind for a long time.  The only thing that was holding me back was finding the appropriate name.  When I found that TheUpperLeftUSA.com was available, it became a much easier decision.

I wanted to move away from Raison d’être Photography because I feel that it is too hard to spell for most people.  Humans are an instant gratification species and I don't think that french sayings will help Americans try to locate me.  

#upperleftusa is also a very popular hashtag for the region on Instagram.  Having a popular hashtag will hopefully also drive some more traffic towards the site. 

I feel that this is an all around better business decision.

Fun with Film

Today I developed my first roll of film, something that I haven't done since high school.  This is definitely a love hate relationship since working with film is such a process.  Although it is expensive and time consuming, what you get is so rewarding.  You are just so in touch with photography as a whole when you fully embrace film.  

I decided to develop my own negatives and instead of prints, I wanted to scan the negatives so that I'm able to upload them to the internet.  I still have a lot of practice to look forward to in both the photo taking aspect and film developing. 

In the above gallery are some photos that I took above the span of a few weeks. They range from photos of dogs, going out to dinner, to various shots from a visit to Leavenworth, WA during a holiday lighting ceremony.  Enjoy them and stay tuned for more to come.  

Going Full Hipster

Let me introduce you to the newest addition in the family, my Nikon F3.

This is the first time that I've bought a film camera for myself. I haven't used film since high school photography class and haven't felt the need for it since we have easy access to digital. Using film today, could seem like a major hassle since you are limited to one ISO per roll of film and you have to deal with the development of it. There's no way of telling what the image looks like until the film is develop or printed.

Although there are some major drawbacks to film, I believe that it can greatly improve a person's ability to shoot. The limitations and lack of features forces you to stop and think about the shot. You have 24-36 exposures per roll of film. A roll of film can range from $2-$15. There is also the cost of developing the film, wether through a photo lab or buying the equipment to develop it yourself. After you develop the film, you also have to print it or you just have a bunch of semi-useless film laying around. I opted to get a film scanner instead to digitize all the film. With film, if you are careless, you are just flushing money down the toilet. It can get VERY expensive. Photography is already an expensive hobby but doing it with film just adds to the problem.

With this camera, I intend to do a lot more street photography. I wanted a small and lightweight camera to walk around with and capture some of the essence in life. I think that using film just adds to the quality of street photography. Although that may be a stereotype, I'm sticking with it! At the end of the day, it's not so much about the equipment as it's all about the photographer and what he/she is able to do with the camera. 

Be patient with me as I practice with the F3 and get accustomed to it. In time I will get all the film digitized and will add a new street photography section to the website.