Early morning in December, the light is soft and misty in Olympia. Well, it rains much of the time, so indeed, the light is softened and colors are muted. It was time to experiment again with color negative film. One early morning, I left my car at a repair shop on Capitol Way and walked home through the city. Here are some random scenes on the way.
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| Capitol Way, early morning |
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| Time for some wiggling, 117 Columbia Street NW |
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| Alley parallel to State Street |
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| Alley parallel to State Street |
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| Rhythms Coffee, 210 4th Avenue W. |
According to Rhythms, "Stay tuned for some of the finest coffee on earth, never before served in Olympia." I think the best coffee I ever drank was in Colombia, but that is a story for another day.
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| It is fishy at 116 4th Avenue |
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| Capitol Way view south, rather uninspiring |
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| OSSA Skinworks, 109 Capitol Way N. Could they make my skin look good? |
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| Washington Street view south, also uninspiring |
Every city in USA seems to have a Washington Street. This one is not inspiring, but it does have some older architecture.
This ends Part 1 of our morning walk. Please type "Olympia" in the search box if you want to see other Olympia articles.
I took these photographs on long-expired Kodak Bright Sun (i.e., Gold 100) film using my Pentax Spotmatic F camera and the 50mm ƒ/1.4 SMC Takumar lens. This is one of the mid-1970s versions of the 1.4 lens with multi coating and without elements containing thorium salts. Some early 1970s versions yellowed because of the thorium glass. Those are renouned for superb optical quality. Most of my exposures this morning were at ƒ/2 or ƒ/2.8. It is convenient to have a large aperture lens.
This Gold 100 is more grainy that the Gold I shot years ago when the film was in production. The colors have that old film look, but this roll survived the decades reasonably intact. Still, years have passed, and I suggest you not seek out Gold 100. I wish Kodak would reintroduce it. I tried their contemporary Gold 200 and thought it was too grainy. But in 120 size (medium format), the modern 200 might be fine. The Gold 100 decades ago was superb.
6 comments:
The current exhibit in Albuquerque of Northwest indigenous art was a good reminder for me that the area's climate and environment played an important part in stimulating traditions of unmatched creativity and productiveness.
I don't know that I was inspired or uninspired, but I did enjoy the street views and it was especially nice to be able to enlarge them and view details on the old buildings. Those are often the best part of the street to me.
Thanks, Mike and Suzassippi. Olympia does have early 20th century buildings, but many look a bit rough or neglected. The city has an active arts community and several arts walks during the summer (i.e., the non rainy season).
Rough and neglected seems the norm these days, right? I have always been drawn a bit to the gritty side--probably why I photographed so many ruins and abandoned places.
I like these photographs, but they look rather incongruous. They have that 1990s grunge aesthetic but with modern cars instead of the 80s and 90s cars one would expect to see in such photos.
Hi W. White, you are right, the cars are too modern. As the weather gets better, I see more antique or venerable cars cruising around Olympia. Maybe a challenge would be to photograph "interesting" cars around town. But some people get sensitive to having their car's portrait taken.
Kodachromeguy
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