Houston, Texas (Going Places) - September 2018

This was actually meant to be a print zine, or like a printed photo essay, under the name “Going Places.”

It was very much about my relationship at the time, and a lot of the anxiety around meeting my ex’s family, what does the future look like, etc. I dunno at a year in that stuff is important. I like way too many of the photos, and the project to shelve the thing in my hard drive, but I also feel weird committing it to print, so the blog here seems like a solid compromise.

I think it’s an important set of photos to share (for me), and maybe one of the bigger steps up in quality/skill level/polish for me. I’m not really inclined to say too much about the project or what I made of the environment or much else, but I’ve structured the groupings/blocks of images in the same order I would’ve had them in the zine.

If you’re really curious as to what the zine would’ve looked like, I can shoot you a PDF copy, you can find my contact over on the contact page.

The other thing to note is that this is the last batch of photos I willingly mixed film stocks on. From this point forward, if I used different film stocks on a project or trip it’s because I ran out midway through shooting and needed more/backup, etc. I like all the different films/looks here but really, honestly, I would’ve been better off with a more cohesive overall tone.

Notes for film community folks (that non-film shooters know is pretty unimportant):

All the color film is Fuji Superia 800. I think the greens actually look really good here, and the speed/grain fits in nicely with setting, and was really useful. I shot it at box speed.I’m working on a review of Superia 800/1600 (NB: Natura 1600 is Superia 1600) and what the viable replacements in the current market are. Hopefully I’ll have that up next week.

The black and white is really where I got into the weeds/into trouble. First of all, alternating color and black and white is really not working for me these days -- like a year later -- it hasn’t been that long -- but I ended up mixing three types of black and white film, with acceptable, but not cohesive results. The imagery itself is fine, but because I waffled around too much the feeling drifts. I think this was one of the first big outings I had with Agfapan APX 100, left un-pushed in post -- which is actually probably the look I’d prefer for the thing. I think the next black and white I shot was one of my few remaining rolls of Acros in 35mm, but pushed to 400 because 1. You can push Acros to 400, and 2. It looks good pushed, and because of the amount of time I was spending in the car, having those extra two stops really helps, when you’re shooting up at 1/500 or 1/1000. I think I had the common sense to bring one roll of Bergger Pancro 400, I know I pushed it to something fast, either 800 or 1600, but I couldn’t tell you off hand. Despite being very different films on paper, the contrast of Pancro 400 when pushed hard matches well with Acros at base, and even more so, when pushed -- I have a hard time telling the difference between the images made from those two emulsions from relatively small images.