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All right, so yeah Caleb and I went out to the desert again to take photos Which is basically the setup for every video I make nowadays much to your surprise I'm sure Caleb found a goldmine of abandonment not a literal goldmine But actually an entire neighborhood that's been left to mother nature and yeah crackheads apparently It was an old Air Force base that was vacated around 1994 as best we could tell but it definitely had the look of a suburban neighborhood When we arrived we scouted a bit and pulled into a small driveway overhang area Luckily not a single soul had ever been there and the place was totally graffiti free I didn't really have a game plan to shoot these buildings I kind of felt inspiration would just hit me like a cobra strike to the tank I had two cameras with me as per usual the Leica M6 and the Nikon F2 both of which had ultra-wide lenses Basically glued to them the whole time And the Leica M6 which took me an hour and a half to load even though I've owned it for a couple years now I loaded some HP5 that I would be pushing two stops aka the I don't want any shadow detail special Damn, how am I still this bad at loading the M6? Oppositely in the Nikon F2 I Hulk smashed some Portra 800 into that SLR style son of a bitch I pushed the Portra 800 one stop. I don't shoot a lot of Portra 800 I can't even remember the last time I did it's not because I hate it It's just because have you seen the price that shit lately keeping both film stocks the same ISO 1600 allowed me to coordinate exposure a lot easier and Shoot in more low-light environments. It's kind of Faking more light sensitivity, but whatever plus the extra grain from pushing these film stocks with no doubt be a wonderful pairing for the Subject matter like a fine wine and the Arby's meat mound sandwich. Yes, my heart still longs for another one With two powerhouses dangling loosely underneath my head and also my cameras. We headed into the first apartment building Figured it was time to get the first shot out of the way Historically the first shot of the role is never really the one. You know what I mean? What's funny is that there's always some sort of pre jitteriness when you enter buildings like this It's kind of hard to escape that primal instinct that's telling you that maybe you shouldn't be there But once things kind of settle down a bit and no one attacks you by brandishing a machete and charging you You start to get a little bit more in the zone auto zone So soon realize that a lot of these apartment buildings are the exact same layout and finding compositions that weren't alike would be a bit of a challenge so a lot of these places are basically the exact same layout so There's only so much you can do compositionally each living block is kind of angled differently towards the Sun So that kind of gives you different lighting options. I might try going upstairs and seeing What's up there, but I don't know if I trust these stairs So it's just a bunch of empty rooms up here really. Yeah, I don't know if I trust this floor to be honest It's pretty cool up here, but there's not a lot up here that wasn't down there In fact, I'd say downstairs is probably more interesting Someone told me to be less negative over my shots and so I guess I'll start now I actually like this shot a lot. It's very simple and non confusing, which is a big deal to me At this point Caleb and I split up not like romantically But we just went down different paths so that all of our shots wouldn't be loose copies of one another There's so much here. There's no way we're gonna be able to cover it all today This shot is interesting from a basic shapes approach. I like how the light coming through the window maintains this semi Rectangular pattern even when distorted by the wall and the floor It's not the only thing that was semi if you catch my drift These portrait 800 shots were very orange and yellow. Yeah, I'm not sure if that's just because the setting we were in Was basically that color anyway, or if it was just a color cast as a result of pushing the film I don't normally shoot color negative when we go explore abandoned stuff like this a lot of times the Original colors of places like this are kind of faded and ugly It's a lot of dust and beige and I don't really think that always works for color I ultimately chose portrait hundred for the extra sensitivity and the warm brown tones that it kind of brings with it I'm not totally in love with the look, but there really just isn't a lot of color to derive from places like this Anyway, a bunch of these shared walls have been body slammed through like the Kool-Aid man Just had a field day at this place or something. So it's pretty easy to scout different buildings quite quickly Fleeing what was probably the bird orgy of the century upstairs I moved on down the road to some buildings that had a different layout and fake Soviet propaganda for some reason Anyway, we moved on to a different part of the neighborhood that featured more housing and apartment buildings and the Lighting was starting to get really nice But ultimately we couldn't really shake the feeling that we're being watched Which turned out to be kind of accurate right around this point a truck pulled up on us and told us that we shouldn't be there Which was probably true He wasn't security, but he was hosting a mock combat simulation event there later that night And he kindly offered the advice that we should GTFO the out of there before the Sun goes down because as He put it outside of literal combat zones. This was the area he had seen the sketchy as go down now with sweat and Maybe something else trickling down our butt cracks. We decided to wrap up there and push on elsewhere before you know We encountered something not cool We also put on our safety vests because no one wants to murder somebody who's highly visible, right? I mean, I don't know. It's a working theory Plus if I die for my photography does that mean people will finally respect my work We talked to the guy who's running this like airsoft event. It is slightly unnerving hearing gunshots in a place like this This photo is good Maybe one of the best from the day the colors are nice and warm and the lighting makes the photo interesting at the very least This was also a good photo the faded black and white look makes it look like a Polaroid a little bit or at least our ideal version of what we think a black and white Polaroid should look like because reality is a little different Those gunshots sure do put you at ease, huh, but they're just firing blanks, but like Sketch this shot was definitely silhouetted a rookie mistake on my part with the light meter You thought maybe I was better than this. Well, think again bitch In one of the buildings there was this cool chair that was placed kind of nicely next to the front door There was also this totally uncool guy screaming something down the road So we left in kind of a hurry. This is why we have a forerunner We And moved on to a movie theater that looks like it had seen better days Pretty cool, right an abandoned movie theater. How often do you come across one of those? It was pretty dark in there like advanced darkness and we didn't really want to die So we said girl bye and explored elsewhere. I want to go in there so bad. I am not can't blame you big dog One of the rooms there where these cool chairs kind of piled on top of one another I guess I forgot I was shooting with the 12 and the final photo makes it look like they're a mile away So that's no good It was also here that we felt really uncomfortable for reasons that we couldn't explain You know that reptilian feeling you get like you're exposed being watched and shouldn't continue onward. Yeah It was that times three Regardless, we snapped a few photos before security came by and told us to leave before it sees us. I Asked him what he meant by it, but he just sped off quickly Anyway, we called it a wrap after that spot and headed to our accommodations for the night But then soon departed in search of barbecue an iconic staple of any road trip I do with Caleb Unfortunately, the two places we stopped at were closed, but Caleb was handling it quite well. Oh my god Why are you closed? So we went to In-N-Out instead where the line was longer than Godzilla You know that Brian Cranston one where we don't see Godzilla kick some pterodactyl ass until like two hours in Yeah, that one Anyway back at the hotel things were starting to calm down And I took this bad photo of the bathroom sink at something like one fifteenth of a second and f2.8 So I was kind of out of options there Bring it back man. Just bring back air chrome, please Please make this end The next day was definitely brighter and louder than usual for some reason that didn't really matter to us We decided to check out this abandoned hospital that is supposedly haunted if you believe internet lore It was definitely an interesting building and I think the pushed HP5 actually helped kind of darken the shadows to the point You don't really see how much graffiti was actually there It's kind of a nice trick if you're ever shooting a place like this It was here that I made probably the biggest revelation of my film photography career yet hungover. I Just noticed that I take a different approach than usual when I'm photographing abandoned buildings or interiors in general In my head, I think I just see it more as shooting the space rather than the subject The setting itself is interesting on its own. So if I can capture it effectively, I've already got a half decent shot on my hands I mean you can see it that way or you can see it as a cop out to not have to try as hard to get a good shot But regardless overall, I'm pretty happy with a lot of these This room was super cool. I Took one shot on color and one on black and white to compare and I'm not sure which one I like more Maybe the black and white. There's really no need for this scene to be in color unless Subconsciously I was trying to tell you that this place smelled just as it looked Once we had our fill with the lobby area We decided to head downstairs into the dungeon where it was significantly more darker and claustrophobic Despite the demon noises coming from the underbelly of this thing we pushed on. Oh No, I forgot to tell you what lenses I was using on my cameras Well, if you insist, I was using the ultra wide 12 millimeter Voigtlander on my Leica m6 and the Nikkor 17 to 35 2.8 on my Nikon f2 That Nikkor lens is a total beast It has a tiny bit of fish eye distortion at shorter focal lengths But the glow that it produces around hot spots is like having a free glimmer glass filter Eventually we traversed through several hallways and found some interesting examination type rooms I think this photo is the best case scenario for color film in a place like this The subject and setting is quite interesting and the light from the windows has a really cool glowy look Unfortunately, we had both just seen the movie Barbarian and couldn't shake it from our consciousness in a place like this This photo of Caleb is awesome I don't take a lot of portraits because my boy Edwardio Hooper didn't paint a lot of portraits And I just tried to copy his every move regardless. I think I might throw this in my portfolio It's just a perfect combination of Caleb and the thing he loves the most abandoned trashed buildings Do we dare? Nope Eventually we came into this large storage room or something There's this one beam of light pinning through and as photographers sometimes that's all we need Anyway, after unlocking a new player and film photography loser the video game I took this shot of Caleb and it's kind of hard to make out that he's even there Sometimes I forget how wide or die the 12 millimeter is This shot here would be very moody cinematic even if it didn't say wiener in the corner Last but not least we decided to check out some temporary offices set up right next to the hospital There's a lot of good stuff here. So we definitely took our time This shot is pretty good, but the shot on the other side is better way better This is going in my portfolio. I know we touched on shapes before but this cut out of the wall It just absolutely makes this shot This was a totally cool location and a lot of the rooms definitely gave you the back room vibe You know except for the occasional wall inuendo There's even a mystery room that I decided to check out and was pleasantly surprised It was a toilet My own personal bread and butter Anyway, that was that I finished both roles just in time to head out But before we head out of this video, I'd like to quickly thank today's sponsor Squarespace Squarespace is an all-in-one website building platform that allows you to custom build your own website to the fullest capacity of your own creativity With hundreds of professionally designed templates at your disposal getting started with a good foundation is easy Utilizing Squarespace's intuitive user interface You can simply add or subtract modules to design your own custom look that suits your creative vision For this reason, I've personally been using Squarespace for several years to host my own online photography portfolio The ease of customization allows me to try new arrangements and layouts for my work in a smooth and quick fashion In fact, I was able to renovate my entire website in under two hours a couple of weeks ago Plus if you have questions or need help building your site You can contact Squarespace's award-winning 24 7 customer support portal So what are you waiting for if you're ready to build a website? You can start a free trial today at squarespace.com slash grainy days If you use the code grainy days at checkout you can get 10 off your first purchase This was a super cool location, but definitely sketchy at times I mean all the best ones are for sure if you're not fearing for your life How do you expect to push yourself to become a better photographer speaking of pushing? I might consider pushing portrait 101 stop again in the future. It's not bad Overall, I don't think that this was a location that really needed to be shot in color But whatever I got a lot of shots that I'm pretty happy with I wonder if this mentality of shooting space over subject is going to be my approach to shooting interiors going forward I think that the setting can be a lot more interesting than the subject a lot of times But looking back to when I shot this I was kind of just going with my gut and only made that revelation later on Whatever, hopefully you enjoyed this another directionless episode about a cool location I actually really like doing these one-offs, but Maybe you hate it. I don't know