Vinny does Shelton, Washington, with Kodak Panatomic-X (Abandoned Films 05d)

Vinny at his best

Vinny, my Little Voigtländer Vito BL camera, does not get out often. Long-term readers may remember he insisted that I take him to the big city of Jackson, Mississippi, in 2021. Well, Vinny was restless and again called out, "Take me to a city."  

This Vito BL has a 50mm ƒ/3.5 Color Skopar lens, Voigtländer's superb 1950s reformulation of the classic 4-element Tessar design. This one is fully coated and unit focus, meaning, the entire lens moves rather than just the first element. And I have genuine Voigtländer 32mm color filters. The shutter speeds are reasonably correct despite the Prontor shutter having not been overhauled. The selenium light meter does respond to light but is non-linear and unusable, so I use a separate Gossen hand-held meter. 

My Buffalo, New York, friend had sent me a roll of 35mm Kodak Panatomic-X film. The last rolls I used in Mississippi and Louisiana were grainy and a bit fogged. Was this one better? Was it the last roll on earth? What could be a better use of Panatomic-X than to photograph urban decay with Vinny? I decided to expose this roll at exposure index (IE) of 20, so that required a tripod to stabilize the camera. Using a tripod makes you slow down and frame each picture carefully. 

We set off to Shelton, Washington, one April day (2025) with mixed sun and cloud. It was dry, a treat after a soggy March. Well, any day with Panatomic-X is a treat!

Coming in to town from the west, you drive along West Railroad Avenue. Years ago, the Simpson Lumber Company operated lumber trains along this route.  An old rail yard is overgrown, but you still see track. Someone has mowed the fields. 

Riverside Manor is a mobile home park at the west end of West Coda Street. The wooden bridge crosses Goldsborough Creek. 

Near the bridge, some dudes came out of a house with a dog and multiple cats. They admired my 44 year old car. One guy showed me his fixer-upper BMW M3. He said he formerly raced it. Then, some kids came across the bridge and spent some time looking at my car. They asked if they could look inside. They were friendly and even more cheerful when I showed them the engine compartment.

The old rail line crosses Goldsborough Creek at South 9th Street. A fellow from the house to the left came to talk. He thought the City planned to convert the former rail line into a rail trail. He said he could not afford to pay for water, so he went down to the creek to get water to flush the toilet. 

This handsome brick commercial building is on South 2nd Street. Some of the former glass show windows have been covered with plywood. But wait! What is that in the overgrown lot to the north?

Ah-ha! This building is protected by guard flamingoes. I will not mess with them.

Rail yard off South 1st Street (1/4 sec. ƒ/11, medium yellow filter)

Storage tank, Grove Street (light yellow filter)

Chicken to go, South 1st Street (1/4 ƒ/8, light yellow filter)

South 1st Street (1/4 ƒ/8 light yellow filter)

Alley parallel to Railroad Avenue (Fuji Presto 400 film, 50mm ƒ/2 Pentax-A lens)

Vinny did well on his outing to the big city of Shelton. I certainly cannot complain about the results from his Color-Skopar lens. It is a classic 4-element optic of Tessar design. Of course, using a tripod let me set the lens at its optimum apertures of ƒ/5.6, ƒ/8, or ƒ/11 and set the shutter speed as needed. I measured the light with a Gossen Luna Pro Digital meter, mostly on incident mode. This tends to be foolproof on days with soft light.  

This roll of Panatomic-X looked good, with no obvious fog but more grain than when it was fresh. Northeast Photographic in Bath, Maine, developed the film in Xtol. I scanned the negatives with a Nikon CoolScan 5000ED film scanner. The last picture of the alley was on Fuji Presto 400 film.

That you all for reading along.

Small Towns in Washington: Shelton

Shelton is the westernmost city in Puget Sound. It is northwest of Olympia at the western end of Oakland Bay. Travelers taking US 101 north to Port Townsend or Port Angeles at the north side of the Olympia Peninsula would pass right by Shelton. 

In the early-mid 20th century, Shelton's economy included logging, farming, dairying, ranching, and oyster cultivation. Logging was the heavy industry, and the Simpson Timber Company operated a mill complex at the waterfront of Oakland Bay. Formerly, trains carried logs out onto a man-made peninsula, where they were dumped into the bay. From there, tugboats moved log booms to other processing centers and mills, such as the huge mill in Everett. 

Frontier Antiques, S. First Street, Shelton

Bob's Tavern, S. First Street, Shelton

South First Street carries a lot of traffic, but the stores did not look too prosperous.

Rail yard off S. First Street with mill complex in the distance

Timber rail cars off S. First Street

From Google Maps, I could see the remnant of the lumber dump at the waterfront. But I could not personally get to the waterfront because it was it was part of the Sierra Pacific Industries work yard. Only employees were allowed in past security. 

Boathouse, Oakland Bay Marine

This was a rather frustrating visit because I could not reach the industrial waterfront. And the June sky was brilliantly clear and featureless (boring). But Shelton will be worth further exploring. Not far away, the High Steel Bridge over the south fork of the Skokomish River will be worth a visit. 

Dear Readers, you know where this is going. What do you do after a few hours exploring and photographing? Well, that's obvious, go to the Cabin Tavern to eat Fish 'n Chips and drink cidah (that is New England tawk). 

Post-photography health food at the Cabin Tavern, Shelton

Don't do it in the water

I took the black and white photographs on Kodak Panatomic-X film with my "Texas Leica," the Fuji GW690II camera. It has a superb 5-element Fujinon 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens that equals the lenses on my Rolleiflex and Hasselblad. I used medium yellow, dark yellow, and yellow-green filters to darken the sky. Praus Productions in Rochester, New York, developed the film.