We were restless after a very wet March in Olympia. It was time for a road trip. And I wanted to exercise my Leica IIIG camera and try Kodak T400CN film again. Some of these expired rolls have looked fine, but others have deteriorated. The rolls I used in Greece looked great. I should give up on this long-expired film forever, but thought I would try one last roll. I loaded a roll in the IIIG for some of the great expanses of Washington state east of the Cascades (plus an overnight in The Dalles in Oregon).
The Dalles, Oregon
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The Dallas (Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 lens, dark yellow filter, 1/125 ƒ/5.6) |
The Dalles is a busy rail junction. But areas of this rail yard now have bare sections and unused tracks. Still, an interesting place. The mill became a winery?
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Waiting for a horse |
Columbia Hills State Park
Cross the Columbia River, drive past Dallesport, and ascent a gravel road up into the Columbia Hills. In contrast to the forested mountains of the Columbia Gorge closer to Portland, these hills are in the rain shadow and are a dry terrain. The area is famous for wildflowers in early spring.
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Dalles Mountain Ranch (Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 lens, yellow-green filter) |
Farmland and the Palouse, Washington
Head east out of Richland, and you drive through miles and miles of beautiful rich farmland. As you continue east, you enter a land of hummocky low hills composed of loess (wind-blown silt). This is the Palouse. It encompasses parts of western Idaho and central east Washington.
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Rail junction, Roosevelt (Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 lens, orange filter, 1/60 ƒ/11) |
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Pasco-Kahlotus Road north of Pasco (50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens) |
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Historic schoolhouse, Pasco-Kahlotus Road (Jupiter-8 lens, orange filter) |
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Silo, Kahlotus (Jupiter-8 lens, yellow filter) |
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Grain terminal, Oaksdale (Jupiter-8 lens, yellow filter) |
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The Grain Train, Oaksdale |
This roll of T400CN was thin. Once again, it may have been mis-developed by Photoland at The Evergreen State College. I will not use their services ever again. This old T400CN is grainy, probably much more so than when it was fresh. But I still like the tonality, and the ICE scratch removal in my Nikon Coolscan 5000ED scanner is a great convenience. Still, it is time to stop fooling around with T400CN. As a substitute, I can try Ilford XP2, which is the only C-41 black and white film still in production.
2 comments:
Your IIIG and the C-41 b&w did an excellent job of capturing the character of those arid Eastern Washington scenes. The pictures have a particularly nice feeling of depth and expansiveness.
You don't mention the lens, though I guess it has to be a 50mm since you have three, all of which I am sure are excellent. Still, it seems likely that the IIIG has been whispering to you about needing a 35mm.
Thank you. I did not take my Summitar lens on this trip. A 35mm...hmmm.
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