Pride
Beams of light.
Over the weekend I caught the early arrivals to Portland, Maine’s Pride celebration. We had to leave town an hour before the parade was due to start, but folks were showing up pretty early so there was still plenty to photograph and plenty of good feels. The weekly protest against the current fascist regime was just finishing up, so there’s a bit of that, too.
Gear-wise, I’d been wanting to try a 90 for street, so I did. Thoughts?
Ephemerality
Life, or something like it, goes on.
Nothing lasts. Things become other things. Here today, gone tomorrow. Fleeting moments.
Every day is filled with reminders of the same truth, that the things we know and love today will be gone tomorrow. Memory lasts a little longer, but only a little.
Many take this to mean that humans should fill our days with as much “living” as possible, grasping at the experiences that may be gone tomorrow, continually trying to fill our hands with water. That is appealing, and I do love living. But happiness might be found in a period of contentment and reflection, recognizing the impermanence of our experience and learning to value it, seeing the fleeting beauty and pain as an outward flow.
I was reminded this morning of one of the most prolific photographers on Glass. Every time I opened the app, I was almost guaranteed to see new work from this person. I went to leave a note on their latest photo about missing their work, but the person and their images have vanished from the app. Not just that they haven’t posted in a while, but their multiple profiles are gone. The people at Glass highlighted the persons’s work once and now that’s gone, too. I don’t want to cyberstalk, but a quick google with as much information as I know about the person only returns broken Glass links.
Glass itself—the only social network I still participate in (if we’re not counting YouTube)—seems in decline. Scrolling through the list of people I follow reminds me of how many have not posted any photos in a long time. Some days I think I can count the number of new photos I see on my hands (not very many, I have 10 fingers). I do attribute some of that to the air being sucked out of creative, reasonable people due to the larger societal hellscape. But for me, creating art and appreciating others’ art (not mindless, escapist content—art that elevates) helps make living in hell a little more bearable. If others feel the same, it doesn’t seem like Glass is where they’re finding what they’re looking for.
Nothing lasts. That’s okay. I love what the people at Glass built. I will continue to use it until it’s gone. I hope I’m wrong and more people will discover Glass, understand the value it offers, and help to revitalize the community there.
If you’re reading this and have participated in Glass in the past, know that your contributions there are valued and I miss you. If you’ve moved on to a different online photography community, let us know in the comments. If you’ve eschewed all online photography communities in favor of opportunities in meatspace, especially let us know about that.
As I look forward to where my own photography could lead me, I know that a social app isn’t the end of the road. I enjoy hearing what people think of my work, even if it’s just an “appreciation.” I’ll miss Glass and its unique blend of photos and personalities when it’s gone. But there are possibilities beyond the screen. I just hope I’ll continue to cross paths with the same people along the way.
My about.me page has a contact button that goes straight to my email. If you’d like to keep in touch outside the socials (which, full warning, I’m bad at), send me a message.
Concert photos from a phone
In the app of LUXury.
Last night I went to one of the best shows I’ve been to and took my phone. It has a camera. I used the Leica LUX app, which is fantastic (the 50mm f1.2 emulation is very fun). But then I exported the original HEIC’s and edited them in Lightroom, anyway, so I’m not sure how much of that Leica lookness stuck around. Still, these phone cameras are getting better.
Off-Season Maine
It’s not good, probably just stay away.
Maine in winter is not much different than (to 🇬🇧) Maine in summer—other than the snow, cold, lack of tourists, and general gloom. I can’t say I love it, but I certainly prefer the lack of extra people everywhere. We love walking cold beaches and enjoying the fresh air. It’s the perfect antidote to the aforementioned gloom.
On this particular day, it was pretty cold and I nearly lost a finger piloting a drone without gloves. Heck, nearly lost the drone in the waves, but it just made it back on a drained battery.
The woods of Mount Desert Island
Colorless wonder.
Here are some photos from a hike into the woods on Mount Desert Island, Maine, inside Acadia National Park. They are black and white edits of RAWs, taken on the Fujifilm X100VI. I originally intended to edit these in color, due to the breathtaking light blanketing beautiful evergreens and moss, but I locked myself in. Let me explain.
I’ve had my X100VI set to a black and white recipe that intentionally uses a high ISO range to get noise in the photos. The theory is that the sensor noise—in black and white, anyway—better emulates film grain. In scenes with limited shadows, this usually works okay. But under a tree canopy with intense shadows, the photos end up looking too muddy in color. Black and white it is!
Another thing I’m noticing is that the diffusion filter I have permanently attached to my lens is creating blooms I’m liking less and less every time I see them. That also locks me into edits that may not fit every scene. Many of this set looked downright bad in color. I believe I shall remove that filter (side note, I’d been trying to decide whether to put a diffusion filter on the GFX100RF when it arrives, but after seeing the results in this set, I think I’ll stick to a plain protection filter going forward).
In this set, I decided to embrace higher contrast more than my typical black and white edits (though the SOOC JPG’s were also good). Forests can be visually busy. The higher contrast minimizes the busyness and draws the eye to the same spots of light my eye was drawn to.
Soft photos from Maine’s coast
That time I had no idea how to properly focus a bright lens on a Fujifilm camera.
Here are a few photos I dug out of the archive. They were taken with a Voigtländer 23mm f1.2 on a Fujifilm X mount camera. At the time, I couldn’t manual focus these cameras for shit, especially with a lens this bright wide open. The peaking didn’t help that much. It would highlight areas that were almost in focus, but not sharp. I was frustrated with the lens and returned it. (Later I bought another Voigtländer f1.2 lens to go with my Leica M6.)
Since then I’ve learned about the zoom in button, which has helped me get tack sharp images on lenses much more finicky than this. And I’ve learned to prefer manual focus for most of the photos I take.
Despite the softness, there’s still something about these images that just looks good. If I were in the market for another ~35mm lens for the X system, this would be it. (Seems unlikely I’d be in the market, since the X100 scratches that itch.)
Panoramic fog
Wide open.
It was foggy, I made some panoramas. When I came back to the house, I’d received an email about another of my panoramas being licensed for an interesting use. March 6, 2025: Panorama Day, I guess.
These are straight out of camera files, some with small exposure tweaks in post.
Siri, start creative workout
Closing those rings.
Last Saturday I didn’t go out on a typical hike or stroll or wander, since we were helping our child move out (the third (!) to do so). In between all the busyness, though, I grabbed my camera and whipped out what more serious photographers than I would call a “study” of some flora in a pitcher on the table. Enjoy.
Crappy photos from a crappy lens
You get what you pay for. Or more than you pay for, depending on how this goes.
Last year I briefly tested a Fujifilm X-Pro3, which I loved but couldn’t really justify keeping given my other X mount cameras. Besides, X-Pro5 has to be just around the corner… right? Guys?
For reasons known only to my B&H account, I chose to test this great camera with the worst lens I’ve ever had the pleasure of using (4.5 stars on B&H 🤔). It was a TTArtisan 25mm (37.5mm eq) f2, chosen (I guess) for its tiny form factor. I couldn’t get my hands on an X100V (this was January, weeks before the X100VI announcement), so I wanted to approximate the idea of one. Reader, this approximates the idea of an X100 series camera that’s been run over by a truck and put back together again. Poorly.
THAT SAID, there is something about the hazy, heavily vignetted, crapfest of these photos that makes it both the worst lens imaginable and the one lens you could use for the rest of your life, winning awards, and becoming the most published photographer in history (assuming you’re a white man).
What do you think? Am I just squinting weird or is there something almost right with this lens, amongst all the wrongness? Given a more capable photographer who makes better compositional choices, would it shine?
These are from a wander around Brunswick, Maine.
The things people do at Reynisfjara
Beware the waves—oh never mind, you’re special.
At the beginning of 2024, I’d planned on a travel project where I photographed the reality of what you’d find at popular tourist destinations. The electric wires most people are photoshopping out, the mass of other people, that kind of thing. I abandoned the project before I even started traveling, partially because I lost interest and partially because it felt a bit cynical.
When we visited Iceland, though, I did take the opportunity to photograph people experiencing places, not just the places themselves. Reynisfjara beach was full of examples of people shooting big lenses, people proposing marriage, people ignoring the signs about the dangerous waves and nearly being sucked in (multiple times while we were there), children just having fun, parents filming children having fun, people vlogging, families staging the mom’s insta-pose, and the occasional person just being and seeing and memorizing (my favorite, though it wasn’t me). Enjoy.
Beachfront hotels in panorama
Thematic material.
Like you do.
On consecutive weekends recently, I set my GFX to a 65x24 XPan crop and shot things on and around beaches. The first weekend I just used the kit 35-70 zoom lens. The second weekend I went rogue and used an adapted Yashica 50mm f1.9 (“vintage”!). I really liked the black and white JPGs straight out of camera, but wanted to see how these would look in color. As expected, there’s not much color in these cold winter scenes. But I liked how the colors that did show up were extra highlighted against the relative blandness, so went with the color versions for this set.
Looking back through the photos, there were a fair number of shots of hotels—some closed for the season, one with a person looking at me through an open balcony door, all with a distinctly charming seaside vibe. Here they are.
The kids were all right
The good old days.
Looking back through my archives, it’s apparent to me that the years around ~2018 were incredibly formative for my family. All of my children were grown enough to participate in the same activities. We traveled, hiked, and generally did everything together. Those times are less frequent now, but even more appreciated.
Here are some photos from late 2018 documenting that time’s adventures. I have plenty more showing my kids’ faces that we shall enjoy privately, but these photos are enough to share what those moments in time meant to me. I can’t stress how important it is to document your life—balanced with actually living it.
For those interested in gear, nearly all of these were shot with the Fujifilm X-T2 equipped with the 16-55mm f2.8 lens. That lens. I’ve foolishly acquired and sold it twice. The more I come across photos I’d taken with it, though, the more I think I could happily shoot nothing else the rest of my life. Not really, probably. But yes, maybe?
On the street again
Back in NY.
This time in New York, New York, about a year ago. I’ve previously shared photos from this multi-day street outing, but here are a few more.
On the street
Hitting the bricks.
Walking around Portland, Maine on a chilly April morning in 2024. I don’t always like using this heavy handed Lightroom preset I’ve been developing for a couple years, but sometimes I like the nostalgic look and especially how it treats brick. And the Old Port of Portland, like many New England towns, has a heck ton of brick. So here are some people going about their day–and bricks.
What have I done?
We’ll see how this goes.
A quick post to mention my new YouTube channel launching tomorrow. The first couple videos are scheduled, starting with a semi-monthly (like salaried paychecks, the 15th and the last day) cadence. You can subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/@halfagrain
Albuquerque at night
Lights in the ABQ.
While scrolling through the archive, I came across some night light shots from a recent evening stroll in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Tourism boards are trying their best to keep the Route 66 mystic solvent, but I found it all a bit sad. The occasional retro-ish motel sign scattered between typical laundromats and pawn shops is not enough to keep the vibe alive. There is little difference between these in-town places and the obviously defunct desert sites documented in books like American Mile—besides that somebody’s paying the electric bill to keep up the ruse.
That said, framing is everything, so it’s still possible to make it seem like this is the most exciting place on earth. Enjoy.
Winter Seens
[sic]
I haven’t shot around my property lately. And I haven’t shot my Walter Mitty* setup—arguably my favorite camera + lens combo—lately. So after the sky dumped that fluffy white shit on us yesterday, I grabbed the old WM and wandered around the yard looking for shots.
Here are some things I spotted.
Straight out of camera JPG, small exposure tweaks on a few, one cropped.
*Fujifilm GFX 50s ii (Walter) with Mitakon (Mitty) Zhongyi 65mm f1.4. I know the name’s a stretch, but “Mitakon” became “Mitty” and I forced the rest.
Scenes from a public toilet
Inspiration in unlikely places.
Yeah, really. Don’t worry, it’s the offseason and the place was empty so it’s not creepy. The relative cleanliness, colors, lighting, and tile patterns inspired me to document this beach restroom quickly, before someone else entered and questions ensued. Then I washed my hands.
Hibernating
The Darkness 2, now in theaters.
A second Trump administration is disastrous for the world and will negatively affect you and everyone you know. Plus, it’s really cold outside. So I haven’t been going out much to shoot yet this year. I do have some photography plans queued up, and new-to-me gear I’m excited to use. And by not going out much, I just mean I haven’t been forcing daily shooting like I did in past years. I have used weekends to visit beautiful places to shoot, braving the wind and cold the best I could. Those photos (mostly film, interestingly) will show up on this website and/or my Glass profile eventually.
The break from daily forced shooting has been great for my wellbeing and has restored my photography hobby as the mental balm it always should’ve been. Sure, I want to get better and better at photography (whatever that means) as quickly as possible, but nothing described with terms like “hustle” and “let’s gooo” can lead to calm and considered creation. If I described a well known YouTuber as “the Michael Bay of photography,” many of you would know who I’m referring to. While entertaining to watch, that’s not what I want for my soothing hobby. I’ll continue to be the Michael Bay of stacking and hauling firewood, thank you very much. But I’ll also be the happy-but-commercially-insignificant indie filmmaker of photography.
Here’s a set I took around the yard after our first real snow of the season (the kind that stays the rest of the winter), before hauling in the day’s firewood.
I declare today Snowy Lighthouse Day
Here me out.
For no other reason than I came across some archive photos of lighthouses with snow, I’m declaring today regional Snowy Lighthouse Day. This day will not be repeated next year.
