 Yo what up welcome back to another episode of I went on a road trip, and I didn't shoot any porch or 400 Today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace Yes, it's true Monica Baxter and I went on a road trip up north for a couple of days We figured it would probably be good for the boy all Baxter does day in and day out is in the park and sleep So Monica and I agreed it was time to make him a little more cultured a little more Worldly to see the wild open wilderness where perhaps is much more powerful and normal-legged ancestors roamed the greater Eureka area is somewhere I've always wanted to visit because of its unique coastal landscape I seem to be more in my element when I'm doing photography by the coast now that doesn't mean I took good photos on this trip But at least I feel better about them Sometimes but speaking of apathy towards my work. What gear did I bring? This is always the hardest decision of any road trip I'm sure even Sir Ernest Shackleton contemplated for many nights before his famous Antarctic expedition what cameras would produce the most bangers Luckily for me the decision wouldn't take long using Monica and I's date night fund I had recently purchased four new lenses two for the Pentax 6 7 and two for the M6 perhaps the lens I was most excited to use was the legendary 75 millimeter 2 8 for the Pentax 6 by 7 I don't know about you, but I had never heard anything about this damn lens until several months ago after that I just couldn't really shake it from my mind and I lost a lot of rest because of it It was kind of like my personal sleep paralysis demon supposedly It's one of the most technically proficient lenses ever made for the Pentax 6 7 system and it's equivalent to a 37 millimeter lens Which is right up my alley the other lens that I picked up for the Pentax was the 120 millimeter 3.5 soft focus lens This is definitely an artsy lens. It's not really suitable for anything except 80s glam portraits If you shoot the lens wide open the glow effect is so strong that it's damn near impossible to find focus Luckily when you stop down the lens the effect diminishes I thought that this lens might be really cool to shoot with some very contrasty black and white film and I was kind of right But let's not jump ahead. Lastly, I ditched the Soviet lens that I was using on my Leica M6 and purchased some real Leica glass I purchased the Sumerkron 35 millimeter f2 mostly because everyone champions Leica glasses supreme And I just had to find out for myself. Also, I picked up a Voigtlander 12 millimeter 5 6 rectilinear lens But more on that later. Thus the decision was made for the trip I would bring the dynamic duo the inseparable pair the Leica M6 and Mamiya The Pentax 6 by 7 but enough about how I don't have any money anymore It was time to hit the road and since Baxter's legs are short and basically useless. We had to fork lift him into the car We started off the trip with a casual eight-hour drive to go see my family and boy were my testicles hurting after the long drive But that might be unrelated Halfway through the journey we decided to do the Taco Bell challenge if you've never heard of that before consider yourself lucky It's when you eat a bunch of Taco Bell and then bounce around in the car right afterwards The first person to have to stop loses burrito supreme Extra supreme being the alpha male that I am obviously I won although I do owe Monica a new car seat and she won't look me in the eyes anymore Eventually we made it to my mom's house in an undisclosed town in an undisclosed area on an undisclosed planet This whole trip would really be my opportunity to experiment with some film I brought a lot of film stocks that I don't normally shoot this go around I was packing some heat in the form of retro chrome air chrome and Lomo purple speaking of Lomo purple the next morning I decided to start the trip off with some funk. I waffle stomped some Lomo purple into my m6 Does that analogy work? Not really, but who cares? I also slapped an orange filter on the lens Some rumors have been flying around lately that you can get the air chrome look with Lomo purple if you use an orange Or a yellow filter. Well, that's made up these shots looked bad real bad Like let's just put this roll behind us and not speak about it again until maybe we're on our deathbeds bad And yeah, I used a quick and dirty photography hack to get the filter to stay on the lens when I brought the wrong step-up ring These shots actually turned out okay, but for sure I wouldn't recommend this combination Unfortunately my birthday was coming up and my cat was busy harassing me as a gift My mom stole an Edward Hopper painting from a museum for me The next day it was time to hit the road further north to the Arcada slash Eureka area to break up the four-hour drive a little bit We stopped at a local pizzeria and ordered a prosciutto pizza as per a recommendation that someone gave me But they told us they were out of prosciutto a normal man might have been very upset by this But I shoot film my heart is used to being broken every time I go into my local photography store And they're out of color plus again. So as a way to draw in any local bears for some excellent wildlife photography We got a pepperoni pizza and found a spot to eat it With some Provia in hand and the 75 millimeter on the body with a one-quarter promised. I loaded the behemoth Shooting with the big-ass Pentax 6x7 exudes a certain kind of masculine energy. It's a yeah, I clogged the toilet So what kind of energy? So I think I concluded here that it's not a good idea to use a promissed with Provia or likely any slide film It somehow kind of cheapens the look of the film in the lens I mean these photos probably wouldn't have been good regardless, but we're here to learn from my mistakes We stopped at a nearby gas station and I noticed a super cool hotel sign across the way I went to take a photo of it and there was also a lady there taking a picture on her phone She said to me if you like taking pictures of signs like this You should drive Route 66 sometime after freezing up and some quick PTSD flashbacks. I said Yeah, I'll have to check it out sometime After blasting through a Taylor Swift album. I mean Bruce Springsteen. We arrived at the hotel Before the sunset completely we wanted to take Baxter on a walk But more importantly I wanted to finish the Provia that was in my Pentax 6x7 Which I did but I hate it The next day it was time to celebrate the anniversary of the day I was born which doesn't really seem like something that should be celebrated because things have been going steadily downhill for me since then But alas, I was feeling myself and I loaded some Aerochrome in the complete darkness This is technically my last roll of the original four rolls of Aerochrome that I purchased way back in the day But I'm happy to let you know that I now have three more rolls in my possession Anyway with the orange filter applied We ate the crap out of some crepes and then headed further north to a place called Fern Canyon to fuck up some Aerochrome Do you know how to spell the word Sequoia? Sadly, I had to go in alone because they don't allow good boys in the canyon So Monica and Baxter frolicked on a nearby beach. I ended up taking a shot of this tree twice Once earlier and then once later when the Sun was actually hitting it I don't know which one I like better, but it's definitely the first one for some reason This place was without a doubt one of the coolest places I've ever been And to be shooting Aerochrome here was a dream come true you ever take a photo and it just hits Yeah, me neither, but this one ain't half bad one thing I was a little worried about with the infrared Aerochrome film is that ideally you want to shoot it in direct sunlight and The canyon was mostly shaded. I also took a picture of these pink thorn shits and they turned out yellow It seems that red and pink objects turn yellow with Aerochrome and it's a vibe for sure Eventually I met up with Monica and Baxter on the beach and took one final photo of the coastline with Aerochrome It's definitely one of those shots that looks pretty normal until you look closer And I think that's kind of awesome Anyway Baxter wouldn't stop eating sand for some reason so we left the beach But not before I loaded some Fuji industrial 100 into the Leica M6. I've never shot Fuji industrial before I've heard mixed things Upon first impressions it seems pretty desaturated and neutral After a super dangerous whitewater river crossing in Monica's CRV. We made it back to the highway and headed north We arrived at the trees of mystery and while we didn't go in we certainly admired the monuments to Paul Bunyan out front Even though it looked like he clearly just witnessed some real shit But it was totally worth it because we got some ice cream and Baxter got to meet his hero the giant blue ox and his gargantuan-sized nutsack Down the road a bit. We stopped at a small fishing town for sunset Baxter clearly did not have what it takes to hang. I shot with the Fuji industrial in my M6 as we headed down towards the water But as I finished up that role I put in some retrochrome because why not? It's the shit I'm not super big on the stop sign trope in photos. I kind of feel like it's becoming an overused crutch However, I just couldn't refuse the placement on this one right next to the shore Honestly, every frame on retrochrome just looks amazing. I'm sorry if you disagree, but whatever you're wrong Eventually the role of retrochrome ran out and I hot swapped in some Ektar 100 Ektar and I have a storied past which is mostly rage-filled, but that's a story for a different video Lately I've actually been trying to ignore these ugly-ass modern cars in frame because I know that in 20 or 30 years They'll be more or less vintage. Well, maybe not anything Kia makes but for everything else. It's just a waiting game The sunset light eventually got there Photographers, you know what I'm talking about. As a sunset we raced towards the only familiar thing in town beer The next morning it was time to hitch our wagon elsewhere I threw on the 12 millimeter Voigtlander because we headed back out to some nearby redwoods Unfortunately, the light was a bit too dim for the 100 speed Ektar and the 5-6 speed lens So a lot of the photos are underexposed At 1 15th of a second a few turned out usable and they were gloriously wide like your mom Now you might be like why in the hell would you shoot ultra wide lenses? Here's the deal Edward Hopper is still the tightest mother f***er to ever live But lately I've been binging some work by Richard Estes as well. Richard Estes is kind of a gangster He used to walk around New York City with what looked like a Linhoff Technica and just shoot photos I mean if great art requires suffering then I imagine lugging a 4x5 around New York City We'll do the trick then back at a studio or dungeon or whatever He painted those photos with incredible detail and they look amazing However from studying his work I recognized a few things that I wanted to emulate in my own work the first being lighting We learned this from Edward Hopper as well that we always want the light to be more or less at an angle For example, if we look at this painting by Estes of a store straight up admitting that it sells drugs The lighting cuts the frame in half precisely one side is lit up and the others in shadow This might all seem pretty basic But I think that the angle of light is the key to making a photo that I'll be happy with I took this photo on the X-Pan a few weeks ago and it's okay. Let's be honest It's not something to drop everything in breakdance over I shot several alternates including this one Which angles the lighting a bit more and illuminates half the building I find this image far more visually interesting than the first and the only major difference is where I placed myself to shoot the scene Another thing that I picked up from Estes that's a little more relevant to this video is his use of wide angle in practice Estes actually took several photos and stitched them together like a panorama to create the wide angle look But me being an ultra lazy piece of I figured I would just get an ultra wide angle lens What I noticed is that the ultra wide angle lens is certainly a style But in my opinion, it's only useful in certain situations the key being environments with a lot of vertical objects in Richard Estes's case It was the architecture and skyscrapers of New York City. In my case here. It would be the big-ass redwood trees. I Do actually really like these photos, but I also wish I had a faster film stock in the camera I could go on for a while about Estes's work, but we ain't got time Maybe I'll revisit the topic when I actually get the look right which at this rate will probably be in a couple years Not satisfied with anything at all ever I slammed another roll of retrochrome into my m6 because my thirst for weirdly saturated but desaturated film was not yet quenched Anyway, it was time to head south a bit to Mendocino As we got closer we realized that the coastline was shrouded in clouds and fog But it was about to be shrouded in some dank Tmax 400 because I was about to go hog wild with some black and white So we stopped at a lighthouse and I threw the soft focus lens on the Pentax 6 7 to give the scene a bit more Diffusion than what was already present This shot looks straight up like a painting and I'm totally here for it The lighthouse was pretty cool. The lens up in the tower was even cooler I don't know if I would jerk off to it like they did in that one movie, but four out of five stars for sure Anyway, it was time to check into our hotel and go for a walk along the coast I shot with my 75 millimeter 2-8 and a one-quarter promise for these bad boys and of course Tmax 400 as well Scenes like this are so much fun for me to shoot with the fog rolling in All you have to do is just fire the camera the atmosphere and the mood of the scene and just takes care of the rest Which is perfect because I prefer maximum results with minimal effort This shot of a boulder is one of my favorites for some reason Yes, it's true that the pioneers used to ride these babies for miles But I think the way that the water wraps around the bottom makes it work really well Anyway, it was finally feeding time once again instead of the usual date night at Long John Silver's where I pretend Like I forgot my wallet and make Monica pay. We headed to a local seaside eatery That evening Baxter cleared all of his appointments for the night and napped harder than ever before on the human bed While we slept on his dog bed in the hotel that I paid for The next morning I only had one goal to kill off the retrochrome that was still lurking in my M6 Like an angry wild boar instinctively hunting for ground-dwelling reptiles or birds I also instinctively knew that retrochrome looks gorgeous with vibrant reds So I shot these umbrellas and the photo is pretty damn cool I loaded up some t-max 400 in the Pentax and started off with the soft focus lens But soon switched over to the 75 and one-quarter promised for true sharpness The soft lens is great for a certain look. Unfortunately, that look is a bit limiting I don't shoot a lot of portraits and I can't imagine the look kind of working well with color film and my overall style Alternatively the 75 millimeter is an incredible lens. I just wish they weren't so difficult to find Honestly, I'm starting to think retrochrome is like my own personal cheat code to make any drab scene look amazing It probably also helped that Monaco's wearing a burgundy jacket Eventually we made it back to LA and all was well I hung up the Edward Hopper painting in my apartment and it is now a shrine This road trip was a lot of fun and we're definitely planning another one with Baxter Although we might avoid the beach next time as Baxter has found sand to be a delightful Delicatessen until it passes through him and he shits out a sandcastle. 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