- Where: Peterson Automotive Museum, Los Angeles, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160 (pushed 2 stops)
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
It is rare to have more than a few images in a day of shooting that one is thrilled with. Some have to be culled because of user error, a good amount are dull, another few are what you would call “good” or “acceptable” and on a good day, you have two or three that do this certain “something” for you. My attempt to cull the images from the seven rolls (eight images per roll) that I shot at the Peterson Automotive Museum “suffered” from unexpected success: I had only a handful that I could throw out because they were below the “good” bar, and I got so many that I liked that I had to change my culling strategy. This post is the next batch of ten images I “like” to “really like”.
- Where: Peterson Automotive Museum, Los Angeles, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160 (pushed 2 stops)
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
A gem in Los Angeles that I only heard from during my trip and that I was told I had to see. The Peterson Automotive Museum has three accessible stories above ground with the ground floor dedicated to Tesla worship, the floor above teeming with Porsches of all eras, and the one above exhibiting various famous cars from movies and car culture. The star of the show is the underground garage called “The Vault”. Around 150 classic vehicles are packed tightly for the eager car enthusiast to discover. All images were shot on Kodak Portra 160 pushed by 2 stops to compensate for the low light and f/3.5 aperture of the lens.
- Where: Yosemite National Park, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Ektar 100
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
Mirror Lake and Yosemite Falls (at least the lower one) are easy to reach from Yosemite Valley and are worth the short walk.
- Where: Yosemite National Park, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Ektar 100
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
I have been to Yosemite National Park several times before, mostly around the year’s warmer months. This time it was during early March and the weekend before my visit the park was closed due to heavy snow storms. I had doubts that the park would open in time for my day trip from the San Francisco Bay area to Yosemite, but I got lucky and it opened just in time to moon me again with its natural beauty. In this first part, and the upcoming second blog post, I am sharing some of this beauty with you.
- Where: Alcatraz, San Francisco Bay, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
Alcatraz was a brutal place back when the prison was in use and a visit to the island prison complex gives a stark reminder of those times. The audio tour inside the cell blocks is especially eye-opening in that regard. The contrast between life behind bars and outside of the cell blocks and the prison yard was completely unknown to me. Of course, I had seen Alcatraz in movies, but before visiting the island I was not aware of how beautiful the island is. It looks like the prison is a cement block nestled inside a flower garden.
- Where: Santa Monica Pier, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: CatLabs X-Film 100 Color
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
My first visit to Santa Monica Pier felt strangely familiar. It was as if I had seen that in a movie or game, I played many decades ago. The pier is beautiful and has the cheapest paid parking I have seen in LA. Worth a visit.
- Where: Santa Cruz, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160, CatLabs X-Film 100 Color
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
If you visit Las Vegas, take a little detour and visit the Hoover Dam. It does not take that much extra time, you get to see one of the most popular dams in the world and you can cross the border from Nevada to Arizona, entering a different timezone.
- Where: Santa Cruz, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
Slightly North of Santa Cruz is a rugged coast paradise for surfers. I went there on a day with spotty weather that ranged from sunshine to rainstorms. None of the images in this post were taken in the same lighting condition, and their mood differs wildly in my mind.
- Where: Stanford University, Stanford, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
Visiting the Bay Area with some spare time, I sometimes park at the Stanford Shopping Mall and walk to Stanford University to take pictures. It is a bit of a walk to get there, but I am rewarded with the ridiculous grandeur of the campus design. While preparing the images for this blog post, I decided to play around with Generative AI Remove which just dropped as Early Access in Lightroom. The results are shockingly good and the tool enabled me to bend some images to my creative vision. To give a feeling of what I might have done to some of them, I have included a short explanation for those images that have been altered with Generative AI Remove.
- Where: USS Hornet Museum, Alameda County, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
This is the second of two posts about the Hornet.
