Dolled Up

The wife and I recently met up again with Desirae, a good friend and blogger who specializes in vintage fashion. We spent some time strolling through Golden Gate Park with Suki in tow, chatting it up and shooting some photos.

Since this was a casual shoot, I decided to experiment a little more than usual. I shot most of these as either single frames or stitched bokeh panoramas using one of my favorite lenses, the Nikon 135mm f/2 DC. A single speedlight and a small reflector kept things light and portable while serving as an additional lighting option as the sun kept ducking behind scattered clouds.

The other digital in the bag was Fuji’s new X100s. With its built-in neutral density filter and ability to sync with flash at ridiculously high shutter speeds, the camera works wonders with small flash in a bright environment. And those files…goodness. Single SB-910, gelled warm and zoomed to 200mm, firing into a small reflector behind me for these two. Taken at f/2, 1/1000:

The gear:
Nikon D800E + Nikkor 135mm f/2 DC
Fuji X100s
Nikon SB-910, Pocketwizard Plus IIIs

P O L A R O I D

It’s been a while since I revived my now irreparably broken Polaroid Land Camera 450. But that camera lives on in a way, with its Zeiss Ikon finder now mounted to my recently acquired Land Camera 240. For my first pack of color film with the camera, I set up a light in my cousin’s back yard and took a few portraits of Bridget and Suki:

Between the 1967 Land Camera 240 and my all-plastic Colorpack II, I’ve become quite addicted to shooting pack film lately. Here are some frames taken with the latter, which, though lacking in finesse when compared to the 240, is still a blast to shoot with:

One of the cool things about the Colorpack II is that it takes those Blue Dot Flash Cubes. Not a very refined light source, but still a ton of fun:

You know, in today’s very digital world, pulling a developed print out of one of these beautiful cameras feels downright miraculous. I think it’s about time I loaded my freezer up with pack film!

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Polaroid Land Camera 240 | Polaroid Colorpack II | Fuji FP-100C | Fuji FP-3000B

Miru The Shiba

This is Miru. He’s a 7 month old Shiba Inu, and we get to babysit him until Sunday. Ahhhhh, reminds me of the good old times when Suki was a puppy….a bad puppy

Miru is relatively easy to photograph.

Suki and Miru together? Pretty much impossible to photograph.

I’m sure we’ll have some great times together this weekend. This should be a good way to see if we can handle bringing a second Shiba into our home one of these days.

Images: Leica M9 | 35mm f/2 Summicron

So Long, Fare Well

My cousin and his wife celebrated their first year of marriage last month during their visit from Colombia. I accompanied them on their last day in San Francisco last week, running some last-minute errands and stopping to grab a few frames every now and then.

So long you two. Happy anniversary  :)

So, seeing as I didn’t even have enough time to finish a single roll on Josh and Vanessa, the rest of this post will have to consist of, uh, more Shiba pictures. Surprise surprise.

Miru (left) is a Shiba puppy who in no way shape or form was able to get Suki to care about his existence. We made them hang out anyway:

All images: Leica M3 + 50mm f/1.4 Summilux | Kodak Ektar 100