LA Walks • Arts District at Sunset

Film rolls always take me a while to finish. My first roll of Ultramax 400 was completed in Los Angeles, a few weeks after my San Francisco trip, so it was sitting in my camera for almost 2 months. A majority of it was shot in gloom or bright midday. I wanted to see how well it did during golden hour. To my surprise (not really), this set of shots is my favorite.

This set was shot at box speed as well, around 6 pm during winter. That sunset went QUICK. I love and prefer these pastel hues comparing them to my previous post with the bold building colors from SF. Would you believe that this was the first time I ever shot film at golden hour? I can see why it's considered the magic sweet spot for film photography. Ultramax looks so different; romantic even though I was shooting industrial buildings. The area I was in had huge windows, and they reflected the colors and golden sun beautifully. Even in the shade (shot below), there is a balance between the shadows and highlights.

Definitely sold on Ultramax at sunset. Summer is here - I'm hoping for more rolls of it and golden hour sunsets.

Quick tangent: I've had a love-hate relationship with Instagram lately. I created my Instagram in 2010, and I've seen all the trends come and go. Currently mourning how the app is slowly moving into video, but my shared square memories make me hesitate to delete it completely. In my search for another photo-sharing platform, I was fortunate enough to be invited to try Glass. I fell in love immediately with its UI and simplicity. The interactions with other photographers ranging from professionals to hobbyists like me have been amazing. It's been great to watch the community grow.

Posting on other platforms has also led me to rethink how I structure and what I post on @ad.venturing and my blog. My last recent rolls and digital shots have shown me I really do enjoy documentary-style photography, not just people-less architecture and landscape. I want my shots to tell a story, not just show off a view. I'm challenging myself to write more poems and haikus for my captions ...even if no one cares to read them. If this means deviating from my structured posts, it might be a mess until I figure it out. Honestly, if it sounds like I'm trying to convince myself it's ok, it's cuz I am lol.

Last year I wrote about being in a creative slump and being grateful I can reflect in this space. I'm writing this to say I'm slowly coming out of it feeling more freedom in what I shoot and choose to share. As always, thanks for being here ˙ᵕ˙

San Francisco 2021 • Golden Bear Trading Company

I didn't mention in my previous post that I loaded the roll of Ultramax 400 into my 'new' Olympus Pen FT half-frame camera. I love this camera because I can double the number of shots in one roll. During this trip I actually shot with my second Pen FT ...because I dropped and broke my first one. Such a paradox these fragile mechanical tanks are. I was devastated - still am. Tino and Bon chastise me for not having it wrapped around my neck knowing how clumsy I am. I bought another one online only to be reminded how perfectly awesome my first one was.

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The first morning of every visit, Kara takes me to one of my favorite coffee shops in the Bay. Golding Bear Trading Company has a special place in my coffee-loving heart, and its name is an homage to our alma mater. I love this little cafe and the barista Sam. He makes an awesome cup of Turkish coffee and matcha lattes. Tino always comes out with a few bags of coffee beans he's excited to try as soon as we get home.

The weather was what I would expect on a fall SF early morning. Foggy. I rated Ultramax at box speed, trusted sunny 16, and my intuition to take a few test shots. This particular set of photos does actually remind me of a grainy Portra because of its warmer tones. One of my favorite things I found shooting Ultramax is how true to life the stock's colors are. The greens and reds always come out great, regardless of the weather and how badly I read the light.

It wasn't until I took a look at my indoor shots that I noticed the difference between professional and consumer-grade films. Basically why Ultramax can look like Portra, but with closer inspection doesn't compare. Portra is versatile, forgiving, a film with fine grain, but also expensive. Kodak Ultramax 400 was actually made for cheap cameras, so I knew that by nature the stock's low resolution would not handle being underexposed. The shot of the coffee bags (below) was my first example of that. I set my camera up to take the picture of Sam making our drinks at his coffee bar (bottom left). Then I did a 180 and shot the coffee bags on the shelves without adjusting anything on my camera. As a result, the shadows came out muddy, some detail is lost and there is an abundance of coarse grain.

A more experienced photographer would say I underexposed, while a frugal one would argue I shouldn't have wasted a shot. Honestly, I am neither and it doesn't bother me at all. I've noticed a trend on social media of artists editing and adding grain to digital and cellphone shots, so clearly, the grain essence of film is always appreciated ˙ᵕ˙

Right now a roll of Ultramax is going for about $7, while a roll of Portra 400 is $13. With Fuji, Kodak, and Lomography announcing another round of film price increases, this second set with Ultramax has convinced me to keep trying it out.

San Francisco 2021 • Botanical Gardens

I visited San Francisco three times last year, far less than in previous years due to the pandemic. SF day trips used to mean early flights from LAX to SFO. With the COVID spikes throughout 2021, I embraced road trips as the travel alternative. It definitely has a different vibe to it. There's an overwhelming excitement and seize the day feeling when I jump into the car at 5 pm after a full workday hyped on caffeine and a six-hour playlist ready for the long drive.

I write this and post shots from autumn, spring is right around the corner for 2022. As I balance new photography projects and social media, I keep this quote close to my heart:

You can appreciate the flowers in someone else's garden while still watering your own.

It's been a weird learning curve of balancing growing my social media versus growing outside of it. Late last year, I vetted out which platforms I wanted to focus on, and decided to focus on just posting consistently. On IG, I stopped actively engaging and tagging feature accounts. This year I'm toying with the idea of doing away with hashtags altogether. I will post an update on the results in a few months lol, so far it's been great in the mental health department☺

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I drove up in September to celebrate my college best friend's birthday. We spent that morning catching up at a botanical garden, and it was the best photo walk I'd ever been on! I stopped at every single flower I wanted to take a picture of. She's recently picked up the quarantine hobby of being a plant mom, so it was fun to hear her stories of raising her own.

This was my first time shooting Kodak Ultramax 400, so I didn't really know what to expect. As you might have previously read, I have an awful habit of never checking the weather. I loaded Ultramax the day before ...and woke up to a very foggy SF. Not ideal shooting conditions, but the fog seemed to follow me to every city I visited in 2021.

Ultramax falls into the cheaper side of the price spectrum and is often compared to Portra 400. I have seen it heavily used by landscape photographers for its strong color saturation. Ultramax is also noted to have coarser grain than most stocks. After receiving my scans back, I learned that lighting really plays a huge part in the outcome. I was warned if underexposed, the colors in the shadows can get muddy, and they do - which I hated!! But the grain comes out more as well - which I loved!

The shots above were taken as the sun came out through the clouds. I really love the saturation and colors in these shots. Below are some examples of shots I took in lower light conditions - different color profiles (meh) and more grain (wooo!)

For the price point, I'm definitely going to give this roll another shot. Color profile-wise, it looks to be a grainier version of Kodak Gold, not Portra. After reading around and begging people on IG for tips, I've been advised to shoot at golden hour ...and to check the weather beforehand.