Here you can find a collection of the better images that you can find on this site's blog. Press on any image to view
its caption in the photobook viewer.
The gorgeous reds clashing with the greens were stunning to view in person. This shot doesn't particularly do the breathtaking experience of standing next to the dirt lot gazing upon the lights in the sky justice, but it does capture the basis of it.
While the original scan of this shot had a fair amount of color, I decided to tweak the exposure and black level a bit to make the colors pop a bit more. The grain is a lot more pronounced as a result but I believe the tradeoff is worth it.
This shot is from the first location I visited in May; I'm unsure what purpose the speaker on the pole serves or if I even was able to see it in the dark, but I like the way its sharp angles contrast against the haze of the aurora.
I believe this one is from one of my first ever rolls that I ever shot with my Minolta X-570. I remember being quite pleased with the results of this roll, especially given that I was still getting back into the intricacies of film photography.
I don't remember taking this one very well but I do remember that it was taken from the Washington Avenue Bridge that connects the East and West Bank campuses of the University of Minnesota. I think the way the windows frame the surrounding environment is pretty neat.
This shot's grain is a bit more than I'd like probably due to the new Fuji 400 I used for it since it was the cheapest (and only!) film stock I could find at CVS. The rising smoke across the scene reminds me of the album cover for Parannoul's 'To See the Next Part of the Dream' which I happen to own on cassette and compact disc.
This one came out grainier than I remember (which is impressive given that, if I recall correctly, I shot this on a very high speed film stock) but I still like the composition of it. I frequented the location this was taken from a lot during my freshman year of college, so it holds a special place in my heart.
Ilford Delta 3200 is a film stock that my early photography work featured a fair amount due to its insane speeds compared to color negative film allowing for free-handed nighttime shots like this one.
I don't have a whole lot of shots with flash due to the intricacies of flash photography being somewhat challenging to figure out (as well as frequent equipment failures that I was plagued with) but this shot of a bottle of isopropyl alcohol really captures what I love about the medium.
When I first started shooting film again I took many, many pictures of transit infrastructure in the Twin Cities, the most notable of which being the light rail platforms. This one was of the Warehouse District platform which serves both the blue and the green lines.
This one was from when I brought my equipment with me to Rhode Island for a trip I went on late last year (2023). I felt as if this composition captured the interesting feeling of being surrounded by a wholly unfamiliar environment that I was plagued with during my stay.
A prime example of the vignetting that the ultra-wide lens experiences when set to 18mm. This trait as mentioned in the opinion pieces I read initially scared me off of it, but I find it produces a nice framing effect for these wider landscape shots.
A thing I liked doing with my ultra-wide lens was taking pictures of open corridors that make them appear to be longer than they actually are. This one is a nice example of that as the distanced pictured is walkable quicker than it may appear.
A landscape featuring one of the Siemens S70s being operated on Metro Transit's Green Line. I've shot a lot of Metro Transit's light rail vehicle fleet, but a lot of them don't turn out as well as this one did due to glare from the vehicle's headlights or the shutter speed not being fast enough to capture the vehicle in motion.
A self-timed shot of myself sitting on a rock on the beach of Lake Superior. This is closer to the 35mm focal length of my ultra-wide lens as evidenced by the significant lack of vignetting around the borders of the image.
I don't remember if this was before or after I stopped pushing every roll two stops in development (due to the acquiring of a tripod), but it's a decently clear shot regardless. I didn't actually intend to get the pedestrian in the frame, but I'm glad I did as they provide a nice disruption to the flow of the surrounding architecture.
I believe this one was when I was trying to get a picture of Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS (C/2023 A3) passing perihelion, but I got distracted and ended up taking pictures of the surrounding skyline instead. It's quite grainy due to me using cheaper film stock (new Fuji 400 I believe?) among other reasons but I liked it enough despite that.
I don't do flash photography often, but the ultra-wide lens has been a nice tool to capture objects close to the lens which allows my short coiled cable between my flash and my camera to not restrict the angle that I can position the flash at relative to the camera.
Once the train passed by, I took a few shots of the track it ran on to expend the last exposures on the roll. I quite liked the look of the surrounding digital information signs, so I ended up taking a few shots like this one of them.
A shot I took of the Northstar commuter rail service passing through the dedicated station north of Fridley's. I realized far too late that I positioned my tripod too close to the tracks given the longer focal length I was using, but I managed to make it work.
I had to be quick with the shots I got while the train was stopped at the station as it only sticks around for twenty seconds or so, which I thought was interesting given the low frequency and long distances of the line. Most of the shots I got of the train didn't turn out so well, but this one was a decent exception.
Using this lens tripod-mounted made focusing an auto-timed shot of myself quite easy, especially given the adjacent information signs that I could use to gauge the focus distance.
The station building had a connecting walkway to the top level of the parking structure so that individuals could access the station building without having to meander their way to the lower level of the parking structure.
Most of the shots I got of the bus approaching were unfortunately blurry due to the shutter speed I was using, but this front-on shot did not suffer from that issue. The bus entrance to the station is right off of the ramp to get onto eastbound US-212.
I'm sure the disembarking passengers weren't used to having someone taking pictures of the bus they just got off of, but so it goes. The canopy was a nice touch to the station building as it provided a bit of shelter from the elements for those waiting for the bus.
While other pictures I tried to get around the inside of the building were too underexposed to be usable, this one turned out. The station building had a decent amount of seating, such as this little corner.
The station building as viewed from the top of the parking structure. The top level appeared to be for administrative purposes as it was not accessible to the public due to a key reader locking the door to it.
The top level of the park and ride was completely empty when I visited, which likely was typically not the case pre-pandemic.