recently.
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Photos taken over the last few weeks both here in Brooklyn and in DC. For reasons mostly inexplicable to me, I’ve been experimenting with non-Ektar and non-Provia film stock — in the last post it was Fuji Superia 200, and here it’s Kodak Gold 200, and well, methinks it’s time to go back to the good stuff; there is a sharpness and vibrancy in Ektar and Provia that this cheaper stuff simply can’t produce. Which isn’t to say that the moments in which these recent photos were taken were anything less than full of happiness and silliness and joy.
Also, somebody tell Mike to buy that grey sweater already. He looks great in it.
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dc, early autumn.
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I wonder if my slowly-unfolding relationship to Washington, DC, is anything like my parents’ relationship to New York City: you come to a crazy sprawl of an urban area where a loved one lives, and you find yourself trying to reconcile that person’s particular, intimate relationship to that space while also trying to navigate the sheer touristy insanity of it all.
So there I was last Friday, mostly on my own, finding myself face to face with the DC-ness of it all. The Mall. The museums. The Capitol. The all of it. Overwhelming, to say the least. Seeing friends later that night, and then spending much of the weekend back in the apartment — the grey skies, occasional rain, and chill in the air all conspired to keep us bundled up at home — helped to balance out matters. Most of Sunday was spent tackling a Bolognese sauce while catching a couple of soccer matches on the internet; not a bad way to spend the day, I dare say.
In between the two extremes, we did manage to make it out for some nice meals, though most were not photographed (save the fried chicken sandwich from Eastern Market, which as you maybe can see was enormous). Among the foods consumed: ramen, tacos, hot dogs half-smokes, excellent izakaya fare, and pizza.
I do have more thoughts on the monumentality of it all; I’d brought my 21mm wide-angle lens with me, to capture some of this in action. But I’ll save those thoughts for another time, maybe after another visit. I’ll leave you (and DC) with this, though: maybe we can tone it down with all the flags, maybe? Maybe?
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from the archives: dan m.
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I’d posted this photo waaaaaay back in 2010, after I’d visited my friend Dan in Pittsburgh, two cameras and some Kodachrome in tow. (This was, after all, the waning months of Kodachrome developing, and I wanted in on the fun.) The photo was originally posted here, along with the other Kodachrome pics that turned out alright, but I wanted to repost it as a standalone photo because:
(1) it’s a lovely shot, no?
(2) Dan never poses for me, so I need to take what I can get (literally)
(3) Kodachrome!
(4) it’s a nice memory of a beautiful day driving through Ohiopyle State Park
(5) fall is finally — FINALLY — here, and this photo feels so wonderfully autumnal to me.
Autumn is also the start of a really busy time at work, and the madness doesn’t really stop until after the new year, so it’s the quiet moments that help keep me grounded. Waking up in the morning and seeing that the leaves on the tree outside my window have turned ever paler, just ever so slightly yellow, is a nice sight, a nice reminder of seasons and cycles and jesus, just slow down and breathe already.
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on insomnia and multitasking.
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This is what insomnia looks like. Everything is blurry the next day.
Mike and I are either experiencing some sort of telepathic/empathic/sympathetic (or pathetic?) form of insomnia whereby we’ve been awake at the same odd hours in the middle of the night, or the universe just wants us to have breakfasts in which conversations go something like this:
Me: Frittatas are basically just egg cakes.
Mike: And you know how I feel about cake. [Frowns]
But then after breakfast, there is requisite photo-taking, and on a day like today, all fuzzy and groggy and slightly befuddling, with only so many hands between us, there was no way of letting the recently-developed polaroids rest anywhere while a new photo was being taken. So we just had to hold them in the ensuing shot. This all made perfect sense at the time.
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All of this happened before noon today. There is still so much day to navigate. Luckily, Mike’s got On-Demand cable to help us get through the madness. Whiskey too. Thank goodness.
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philly (sort of).
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I spent just under 24 hours in Philly this weekend, and it was a roaring success of a birthday party, dinner, casino hour (or two, maybe three?), a rare edition of Laphroaig opened up around 3:30am, homemade bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches in the morning, and then the train back to New York City. Less successful, or just downright amateur hour-ish: the roll of high-speed black and white film I’d intended on bringing with me somehow ended up in my washing machine, rendering it completely useless; the one roll of color film I had, I used in the middle of the day, outside, and without metering properly (or at all; see photos below); and then, totally randomly, the roll of Kodak black and white film that had expired in 2004, and which I had no hope in, ended up producing the best photos of the weekend. (See above.) Oh, and the sole photo of the birthday boy and his son got mangled by my errant handling of the Hasselblad clip, so there’s that, too.
That entire paragraph was a jumble of words and misdirection, and I think sums up my current state of mind. Regardless, the photos that did turn out OK turned out on the pretty decent side of OK.
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Among the things learned this weekend when you’re in the presence of a 2 1/2 year old whose princess name is Princess Big Girl Mousy: (1) Wacky Noodle is the real name of this thing, and not a made-up word; and (2) there is something called Beyblade, which I still have yet to see/understand/make sense of. And the young people love it.
Also: Ryan is a very patient model and yes you are going to make it in the portfolio with these shots as soon as I have a chance to update the portraits page. Also also: a plant, just because. It was a nutty weekend.
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the highline. (ok, ok, mostly mike d.)
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Mike D is the only person I know who will tolerate the lengths to which I will go to take a photograph, and the only person I know who will tolerate that I will want that photograph to contain the nearest person at hand — given that we live two blocks apart from each other, share fairly similar tastes in food and drink, and have what might amount to a codependent relationship, that person is usually him.
So if there’s going to be a photoshoot on the Highline, so I can test out a few theories re: black and white film, and pushing Portra 160 a stop and a half, Mike D will most likely be right there with me, or really a couple of steps in front of me, as I bark out orders:
Take a step closer!
No, one step to the right! THE RIGHT!
Chin down!
DON’T LOOK AT ME!
And so on. It’s a testament to our codependency friendship that he suffers through all of this fairly cheerfully. Buying him a glass of whiskey also helps.
So, yes. Last weekend we hopped onto the Highline and I snapped away. Even got a few not of Mike, including one — see right below — that was taken pretty surreptitiously, which isn’t easy to do when you’ve got a bulky Hasselblad + Zeiss lens to contend with. Whenever I see this photo I can’t help but smile; this couple is so wonderfully in lerrrrrrv.
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Also, most of these photos were taken between 6:30 and 7pm last Saturday, just a half hour before sunset (I know because there’s an app for that. No, really.) We shot the black and white photos with Ilford HP5 400, pushed one stop (ie, as if it was at ISO 800), and the color photos with Portra 160 at ISO 320 but pushed by the lab (at my request) two full stops. This makes sense to probably two people reading this post, but long story short: this color combination really makes the Portra film pop in a way that it doesn’t seem to normally.
And so I’m going to keep at this, to see if I’ve stumbled on a good workaround to the crazy expensiveness of slide film (Provia 400x is $9.95 a roll. A ROLL. Portra is half the price). And I’m sure I’ll have Mike around to help out with the test shots. We’re codependent tight like that.
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single shot monday: peter.
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… In which I begin a mostly black & white film phase in this bizarre little photographic journey of mine. More photos later this week, all taken with the Hasselblad, all at ISO 800 or higher. (This one here was shot with Ilford Delta 3200 — love the grain!)
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the boys.
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This nice thing about Hasselblads is that you can carry an extra magazine loaded with an entirely different kind of film — say, one with a higher ISO so you can switch over should you need to take a photo in lower light, or, say, one loaded with black and white film, when the mood seems ripe for greater contrast and something a bit more documentary-ish in style.
Sadly, I have yet to get my hands on a second magazine, which is why I found myself one night last week with a camera full of Portra 400 and nothing else. I should’ve known better: Portra is terrible in indoor+nighttime situations; it does wonky things to skintone that it otherwise gets nearly perfect, and it can’t seem to sort out gentle gradations in overall tones, shifting red and oversaturing in all sorts of awkward ways. I mean, don’t get me wrong: I love these photos (and the fellows in them), but man alive!, these shots in black and white, at say ISO 800 or at 400 pushed a stop or two, would have been amazing. Ah well. It’s on my end-of-the-year wish list.
Also, I swear John wasn’t looking at his phone the entire night. Proof:
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And here is yours truly, cursing herself for not bringing extra film. Not really. (Ok maybe.)
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sick day.
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My seemingly unyielding exhaustion and I called a truce long enough today for me to pick up the Hasselblad and take a few Polaroid photos of spots around the apartment. I’m now slumped back in bed, beneath the covers, typing groggily and hoping that restfulness returns to me soon.
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portfolio.
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At long last, I’ve finally set up a proper website/portfolio for my work! You can find it over at www.hongantran.com. Let me know what you think. I’m hoping to add a couple more projects to it in the coming weeks & months, so it won’t be a completely static site.
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hong-an tran 