 Today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace Well, what can I say? I think I might be kind of in my flop era I haven't shot anything good lately at least in my own opinion, but you know sometimes we can be our own harshest critics However, like any good flop era It's crucial for one to break free of it and I had an upcoming trip to Chicago where I could really let loose and shoot some I don't know Chicago stuff. I'd never been to Chicago before all I really know about it is deep-dish pizza Chicago glizzies bean and Jardia. No, sorry. No Jardinera This whole trip was being put on by our comrades over at the dark room And I wouldn't be going out there alone Although here is your courtesy reminder that we are always alone from the day that we are brought into this world to the day that we Semi-accidentally paraglide into an active volcano several other photographers with much more talent and charisma than me decided to come along as We slicked the city actually that sounds kind of gross. We became city slickers is what I was going for There would be photo walks, beers and cameras and of course a viewing of the masterpiece that everyone should study hard at least once in their Lifetime, Nighthawks, which is basically my photographic northern star In fact, I've pretty much based my entire personality off of Edward Hopper and abandoned old Jason completely So to get the trip started I rode my bike down to LAX Which I had heard has free motorcycle parking that is if you can impress the attendance with a sick wheelie while Unfortunately, I couldn't get it up I did leave my bike there with the hopes that it would not be towed Like any good trip anywhere, it's really more about the people that you go with so this one was already off to a bad start After trekking across town on cloud nine or maybe just delirious from extreme sleep deprivation We arrived at our hotel. Oh, we're on one. Oh, we are. I just got to my room, so Room tour. Not too bad. Not too bad. This is the sink. This is where What I'll be doing there, but something I don't know What this is about, but we can go ahead and Hide that in a dark place. Not too bad Let's check out the view So this is kind of funny. This iPad controls like climate curtains blinds lights colors. I'm in room 1502 and this is set for room 1507 I've just been adjusting Adjusting somebody else's room controls. So probably gonna have fun with that later Anyway, it was time for action. It was time to load up some of Jared Polin's worst nightmare film We didn't travel across half the planet for no reason. We were in Chicago to shoot some hot bangers I decided to keep it cinematic and bring my x-pan or Fuji TX1 or hole in my bank account Whatever you want to call it But to spice things up I brought along a Nikkor shift lens to use with an adapter instead of the standard x-pan lens It's like the 45 millimeter. This shift lens is interesting It's a more economical way to get into a wider angle lens on that system and dropping like 6 G's for a 30 millimeter But can it actually deliver? This is the Only lens that I brought it works on the x-pan and it pretty much covers the whole thing I would say the big issue with it is that there's no like rangefinder connection So everything's scale focused. Oh, I need to put batteries in the camera Anyone else have like keys on their key thing that they don't know how it goes towards but you're kind of hoping one day One of your mysterious relatives passes away and they tell you that key was actually the key to a secret chamber That is hiding a sacred treasure. Oh, dude. I have a coin. What am I doing? I got change at the airport So stupid sometimes The last time I shot this it was having a light leak issue It was coming from a gap in the rear door here So if you just put black gaff tape over it, it fixes a little pro tip for you Anyways, people were slowly trickling in for the weekend of events Caleb Glenn Jonathan and I and Trev unfortunately went for a walk and shot some cityscapes each one different and totally unique from one another I wouldn't really say I got anything worthwhile yet. This shot is fine I like the cab action here and the lights overhead and this shot is okay too with the lady sitting at the table here But I still feel like I was missing the mark a little bit. Oh, well like any good struggling artist There was time to source my creativity from unhealthy substances For dinner we walked about 200 miles to go to this barbecue spot that was highly recommended And it was solid on the barbecue front Unfortunately, the max out was seasoned with asbestos or something because it tasted like butthole and anybody with good taste agreed with me There was some sick neon signs all around town on the way back But I went against my own film photography oath and didn't shoot them mostly because I had 200 ISO in the camera And there wasn't quite enough light romantic For a night in by myself Anyway after the 8 30 a.m. Pre-game at the bar we headed out to the river for an architectural boat tour of the city And I was hoping some x-band shots would come flying out of me like piss on a windy day This shot is a good start it shows scale and context really well But the colors are bland if our subject here was looking this way instead to that would have bounced the shot out nicely But when you only have a split second to nab the shot and adjoining b-roll you take what you can get Anyway whilst on a boat tour hosted by a lady who's giving off hot strong angry substitute teacher vibes feet That would out Eiffel Gustav Eiffel's tower Eventually I did finish off the gold in the camera in an unspectacular display of true mediocrity I'm trying to be more positive about my work overall, but yeah this role just wasn't doing it for me 20 shots Kodak gold x-band. Yeah 17 keepers yada yada yada But that out of the way I loaded up some FPP wolf man Hoping that the raw concrete set on an overcast day would be the perfect combination for contrasty black and white FPP wolf man. I don't know what it is, but it's a very thin film stock It's 400 ISO and I decided to throw on the yellow cat piss filter to cut out some of the blue and hopefully add some drama To the sky anyway as the boat collided with the bridge and began taking on water We headed out to the open lake for one final nice view of the city before we all went down with the ship These shots are overall fine. They're very contrasty, which I think was the goal wolf man is an okay film stock I wouldn't say it's the sharpest. It's also got this interesting background texture to it Which may be in part because of how paper thin the film is Eventually we cruised on down to lower Whacker Street, which Trev thinks is the most hilarious things that were heard I finished off the wolf man with this shot of two bros with so much sexual tension They couldn't be anywhere near each other of the 20 shots of wolf man in the x-band Maybe only like 10 of them were good enough to show but still no portfolio shots on our way to deep dish pizza I deep dish slam some FPP x2 in the x-pan x2 is just Eastman double X cine film I believe the same stuff is sinister BW xx 200 ISO black and white halations. You already know the drill This isn't your first day of film photography But if it is your first day of film photography You should know that Kodak is like two minutes away from bringing back color infrared film and you can grab your nearest flaming hot Mountain Dew and chug and solidarity and Kodak will totally listen to you In the dark seedy underbelly of lower Whacker I shot this it's just Caleb But it's very dramatic and moody the lighting from the street above coming down the stairs is a big part of that And the various hits of artificial light turned out really nice Here's another spot of light I found and barely had enough ISO to capture but it's not too bad These lower Whacker shots are pretty good, but I know I could do better So I made a note of it and I'd be back in a couple of days to prove it Anyway at lunch and sporting my Shakira shirt that is awesome and literally nobody ever commented on the whole time I was there we pounded some deep-dish pizza that was kind of soggy It was fine, but dense and too moist. It was basically swamp pizza Two seconds and then going to beers and cameras See you there beers and cameras that night was popping off as per usual with some crazy giveaways like a yashica mat 124g and yashica t4 point shoot as well as some surprise super star guests After getting sloshy drunk next to a bunch of expensive film cameras We headed home while Caleb recapped the morning boat tour I mean you have you have hot and horny people on a boat That's like 300 people signed up or something like that. Yeah, I think there's like a 70% chance I guess you'll see in two seconds since these are from New York We met up with sissy Lou to do a podcast and she shot some 110 that she then a dark room print Probably the best photo anyone's ever taken of me. It's crazy that 110 can actually scale up to I think this is an 8 by 10 So And then we got probably the cutest couple on the planet That morning things were gonna change up a little bit Juan the mastermind behind beers and cameras offered up his Leica m7 As a ritualistic blood sacrifice to the channel. He let me use it that day I'd never used an m7 before but I'm a big fan of the m6 the biggest difference being that the m7 has an automatic mode that is Aperture priority, which means you can set the aperture you want to use and the camera will calculate your shutter speed for you Super handy for quick street photography, which is more or less what I'd be doing that day. What's up, man? just loading a Camera Reference I believe the lens he had on the camera was a Voigtlander 35 millimeter 1.5 Unfortunately, the rain was somewhat Campering our efforts, but that morning we met up with a large group of photographers for a photo walk around Millennium Park Which features the bean a metallic sculpture that floated down from the skies one day and emits an ominous Hum that occasionally vaporizes people standing near it. It's origins are still a mystery In an effort to escape the rain a hundred photo nerds descended upon the cultural center and probably ruined the performance I was taking place in there at the time But it was worth it for some sweet photography on the m7 like this shot. I Don't know what it is exactly, but I like it a lot the foreground subjects are silhouetted The lighting is wonderful and I like that we can see the buildings in the distance This shot is probably the best from the cultural center. It's Steven deep in contemplation about I don't know Steven stuff Like documentaries probably the lighting from the front window is nice and diffused which Roger I and directly to his face against the dark background I love the silhouette of his backpack against the spot of light on the wall behind him too. It all just worked out Well, anyway after getting kicked out of the cultural center for underexposing film We once again hit the streets and headed back to the beam where we met up with some familiar faces from the days of this channel's past Know what I finally came face-to-face with my one true idol. No, not Caleb the ever-elusive gold Hassy just as brilliantly gold as it is Hassee For popping into the hotel for the night I shot this quick moment across the street and it's one of the best from the trip The lighting the setting and the silhouette of the subject all just make it look very noir and I really like that And to top that I also took this in the hotel lobby before returning the Leica M7 to one of the 36 exposure role of HP5 In the Leica M7 I had 16 keepers and maybe two or five portfolio shots I don't know there was some good ones in there and I'm trying to be as objective as possible Which means I second-guess myself as much as possible. It seemed that now with the trip coming to an end I was finally hitting my stride. Luckily we had one more half day the next day So we said why not be horribly hung over for it and we hit the hotel lobby bar The next morning I decided to load up some low-mote red scale. I've been saving for a special occasion Unfortunately, like me outright rejecting vegetables the X-Pan outright rejected the red scale That's weird. It's not giving me like a frame number. Oh weird. It's not even rewinding My X-Pan does not like this rule of red scale something is going on Rest in peace only roll of red skill that I brought of this 36 exposure role of red scale on the X-Pan I got zero photos that I would keep and zero portfolio shots might change my mind later though Anyway, so I put in some HP5 again and it worked like normal because I immediately turned around and shot this It reminds me of Edward Hopper's sunlight in an empty room painting except more depressing and with more environmental city context instead of what I can only imagine is an 80-foot drop-off right into shark infested waters last day in Chicago It's been a really fun trip. It's been busy. It's been jam-packed our flight doesn't leave till later So we're gonna go to the Art Institute See a little bit more Chicago But time to spare before the Art Institute We descended back down into the depths of lower Whacker once again, which Trev still thought was hilarious I shot some solid work down here A lot of it was repeats from the last time except now with a somewhat more Inflated ISO and ego why not throw that in there, too? But some of it was fresh and exciting like this shot on HP5 Which somehow barely held on to both the shadow and highlight details. Anyway, that was kind of a wrap on all of it I was at the height of my photography for that weekend, but it was time to go home Where do I stand with the 35 millimeter Nikkor on the X-Pan? Good question That was totally unprompted. I probably won't continue using it like I said before it doesn't fully cover the X-Pan Pano format, so you just end up cropping your scans in a little bit Which probably changes the effective focal length to somewhere around 40 millimeters not too far off from the standard X-Pan 45 millimeters and at least that has rangefinder compatibility plus the 45 millimeters a little bit more compact on the body And you don't smack it into everything when you spontaneously pull a 180 But speaking of you better spontaneously turn around and leap at this incredible opportunity to build a website through today's sponsor Squarespace I talked a lot about portfolios in this video But what's the point in having a portfolio if nobody can see it online? I use Squarespace to host my own photography portfolio because getting it all set up was easier than pie Thanks to their custom building modules and simple drag-and-drop nodes I was able to arrange images next to one another to sample my portfolio layout all at a mouse clicks notice Which made it easy to establish what order of images worked and what did not start with one of hundreds of professionally designed templates You can choose from and furnish your new site with Squarespace's intuitive user interface that allows you to build portfolios blogs and even web shops And if you run into any snags that during the process you can check out Squarespace's award-winning 24-7 customer support to get you back on track in no time So what are you waiting for if you're ready to build a website? You can start a free trial today at Squarespace comm slash grainy days And if you use the code grainy days at checkout you can get 10% off your first purchase Chicago was awesome. It was really cool to meet everyone that came out to the meet-ups and have some one-on-one time with y'all But should be hitting only fans sometime soon. I feel like I got some good stuff, too These lower wacker shots are phenomenal and this cafe shot is the gift that keeps on given It almost looks staged how well it's layered and lit Just a lucky moment or street intuitiveness that I developed over a long weekend. You be the judge I do think I had to warm up a little bit before I found this magic stride Where I was shooting continuous work that I didn't immediately discard I just have to figure out a way to get the Photography back and forth for play out of the way before I go to a new city so I can just start off on a right foot Anyway, I made it back to LAX and my bike was still there. So all's well that ends. Well, I guess I hope you enjoyed this Chicago episode and if I dissed some of your food, I'm sorry, but it sucked So yeah