Photography by Naomi Drew
I have enjoyed our stays at this particular cottage when we have been to the Monterey Bay area. Being close to the beach, it gets damp and cold. Nothing like a fire to warm you up and dry out the air on a chilly evening.
Nikon FM2n, 50mm, Lomo Metropolis film.
Fences divide, keep in, keep out, protect, hide.
They provide a backdrop for flowers.
Protection for sensitive terrain.
Barriers and intimations.
Walking up and down the boardwalk / bike path of Monterey and Pacific Grove, it was really a delight to see these boats, old and fading as they are. I am not sure what awaits them, but personally I thought they were rather cute (for lack of a better word) and would love to see them chugging around in the sea! The Metropolis film shifts the colors, and while the boats were faded in color, they were still quite bright in the sunlight.
My old, creaky bones don’t give me the pleasure of playing on rocks any more, much less climbing over fences to get to them. I rather envied these kids! There is something so enticing about perching above a clear bit of ocean – here, the Monterey Bay – and peering into the water below. Fish, anemones, kelp, rocks. Tide pools have the same fascination. As this neck of the bay is protected, the waters are clear and pristine. Wildlife, above and below the water, is readily seen.
Lomo Metropois, Nikon FM2n, Series E 100mm.
Anytime you are in Monterey, CA, you need to get to the aquarium. Going in and looking at the exhibits and sea life is the whole point, but the coronavirus has ended that pleasure. Instead, we got to see it from the outside, like little kids looking in a window, but the windows and doors are shuttered.
More Metropolis, FM2n, and 100mm.
The Monterey Peninsula is a wonderful place to visit. The ocean, landscape, towns, history all work a kind of magic. I would like to spend more time up here in various areas. We went to Monterey and stayed on the border between it and Pacific Grove. Walking was the mode of transportation for the most part, and we probably put in about 10 miles in 2 days. Here is a view as we walked back from Lover’s Point in PG to Monterey.
I took my trusty, rusty, beat up and brassed Nikon FM2n and a few lenses. One day I had the 50mm f1.4 AIS on the lens; this day I had the Series E 100mm f2.8. I also used Lomography Metropolis film, and I will say I really liked it. It’s sort of grungy looking, but not grunged up (if that makes sense) artificially. It is not a sharp film, either. Rated at 100-400 iso, I set the FM2n to 200 and metered accordingly. This is a crop from a larger, rather boring image.
Hmmm. The images I get back from the photo lab are grungy. They arrive grungy. Using the Epson V600, I find crud everywhere.
With this picture, I moved it around on the scanner to decide if it was the neg or the scanner, and the neg won.
I cleaned the image with PEC-12, and the crud disappeared – a bit.
Then different settings in Epson Scan. Final settings which produced acceptable results were 2400 dpi, 48 bit color, digital ice, and medium unsharp mask. Final clean up in On1 Photo 10 and LR. Film was Kodak Ektar 100.
I am not sure if the lab is to blame or the camera, but this image was filthy when I got the scans back from the lab. Either way, for what I am doing, it is unimportant. I am just playing. At some point, I will check to see if the debris is stuck in the film. I cleaned up the worse of it in post, and then did some color correction.
This is an interesting process, looking at the images out of the Lomo LC-A. To my eye, it says poor equipment and bad images. On the other hand, I can see why it could be just fun. My persnickety side is at war with my “let’s do it and see what happens” side.
Aesthetically, I do not think grungy, dirty pictures (with debris all over them) are interesting if it was not done intentionally.
To counter the Lomo, I have a 6×6 Isoletta III rangefinder due to arrive today. Let’s see what that produces.
As a small birthday present, I got a Lomo LC-A plastic camera with a glass lens. This is one of my favorite pictures . . . SOOC, Kodak Ektar.
The Glass Aerie 