in may of 2009, our friend jonathan decided to plan a trip to yosemite to hike up half dome. the time finally came around and six of us took a friday off and camped in the north pines campsite and eventually made our way up.

i’d never actually been to yosemite before and it had been a long time since i’d done any proper camping. it was so fun, and the park was amazingly beautiful in every way. on our first night, galen grilled up some steaks and veggie packets and corn. we had a large delicious meal before packing it up and going to bed early.

the next day we woke up at 6:30am and had another sizeable meal, and headed off on a 4-5 hour hike to the half dome site.

i won’t try to trivialize the hike. thousands of people do it every year. you start at a high elevation, and you go higher (a gain of 4800ft). you hike through the woods, up over two waterfalls, and up large rock steps for hours. then you can see the half dome site.  that means you must again climb the last very steep rock steps up to the rock face. at that point, you need to make a go-or-no-go decision to actually scale the rock face.

at the base of the rock face there is a pile of gloves. you put on a fairly well matched pair because you will be slowly ascending the rock using cables that have been installed on the rock. it’s slow, because people are taking their time, or taking a break, or panicking and turning around and descending. it can take 20-25 minutes to get up there if you decide to go up the “outside” of the cables, or over an hour if you decide to stay within the cables like most folks.

once you are up the rock face, you are at the top of yosemite national park, 8842ft elevation. you have a panoramic view of the valley, and a chance to relax with everybody else who has made it to the top. i was so exhausted and breathing such thin air, that i was wheezing at first until i relaxed a bit. at several points along the hike, i didn’t think i could make it and was formulating back-out plans in my head. i’m so glad i pushed forth and went all the way. in light of foot/hip problems i’ve been dealing with over the past couple years, i feel very accomplished having done this.

at the top of half dome, you are cooling off from the breeze and taking in one of the most amazing sights i have personally seen. the bad news is, you have another 5 hours to hike back and are racing to get back to your camp site before it gets dark. i paused along the way back, wondering how the hell did i go *up* all of this??

hiking half dome was quite awesome and i’m so glad i did it.

notes:

• 2 litres of water is not enough for this hike. filtering fresh water to replenish your store should be done
• eating a granny smith apple on the way down was AMAZING
• if i were doing it again, i would start the hike much earlier and before sunrise.
• having a good flashlight is essential for the trip back

all images were shot on arista premium 400 at iso 6400, developed in rodinal 1+50 for 45 minutes. shot with a widelux f7.

discarded chair in a chinatown alleyway, oakland, california.

this alley was a treasure trove of great objects, light, and graffiti. i found some similar alleys in san francisco’s chinatown, some locations i hope to use for portraits in the future. i think my current desire is to go there with my 8×10 and a subject or two.

I was inspired by david on flickr to post an updated gear photo. Ya, I collect camera gear. I think this year I want to come up with some way to display cameras at home – some way they’ll look nice but I can grab one easily when I’m on my way out the door. ‘Cause, you know, you gotta carry a camera.

Not pictured here are two medium format folders I have at work. And the digital p+s camera that took this pic. I also have two complete enlarger systems (Beseler and Omega) and two Lighting systems (Novatron and Speedotron).

My post of this pic on flickr has a breakdown of gear.

(2048×2048)

kodako 160vc shot on a rolleicord v (xenar).

this is one of the fantastic lamps from x-21 modern in the mission district. some of them are pretty crazy, and one day i hope to own one. x-21 is one of the great local shops in the mission.

Usually when I have to collect information from a lot of online sources, I end up resetting my password on half the sites I need. Usually this is because every site has different requirements, some of which negate the requirements on other sites. This prevents me from using the same password on all sites, which may be a good thing, but I feel I’m picking pretty strong passwords. What gets me is some of the ludicrous requirements, such as case-insensitivity and prohibiting vulgar words! Here are the requirements from some of the websites I use:

The best part of this is the difference between two arms of Capital One. Someone needs to update their COBOL!

This is Echo Lake, the start of our 16 mile hike.

A panoramic view of Lake Aloha, the hike destination. Click on the images for larger versions. These images are plagued by the horrible smudge that was on the lens.. but you at least get a sense of scale of the landscape.

This is a digital snappy taken at lake aloha in the Sierra Nevadas.

This was part of a weekend trip with friends to South Lake Tahoe. I call it the “workout trip,” since the first day was lower body (a 16 mile hike) and the second day was core and upper body (kayaking on Lake Tahoe). Both were awesome, but I got a really bad sunburn on my feet!

i took this on my trip to the abandoned naval air station in alameda.

on my past few photo trips, i’ve found myself focusing on repeating patterns. also, something really intrigues me when i use color film to shoot mostly monochromatic scenes. i guess it’s about finding the subtleties in life.

this one is from the same drive, but in emeryville.

today i decided to go to the hayward camera show, but it wasn’t until i was heading down the peninsula that i realized it’s tomorrow and not today. i was already on the road with the pentax and film, so i decided to go to Alameda. you can see my route on the map.

aside from getting what i think will be great images of some of the buildings on the grounds there, i met dennis, a medium format shooter! he was out in alameda, where he just moved, with his pentacon. i recognized that camera a mile away, since it’s a cousin of my kiev-60. we had a little show-and-tell, since he had been thinking about a pentax but was disuaded from getting one. he showed me a czj 180/2.8 he has — that lens is crazy! anyways, we had a great conversation and i hope to bump into dennis again.

last weekend i was in portland, oregon. ryan was attending a conference and i decided to tag along. i brought my pentax 6×7 and several rolls of portra 160vc. portland turned out to be a fresh, clean city that was easy to get around in.

this image is a picture of the portland center for the performing arts, the most iconic views of the city.

(800×589)

this is a 4×5 i shot on a windy bridge with my tripod leaning towards the railing. another inch further, or a reversal of wind, and my camera would have been tumbling.

barstow has a lot of active railroads running through it. reading more about the area, i wish i had visited the coyote dry lake. it might have been easier on my car than the roads i picked.

i have been on the lookout for ghost towns.

i decided to take a few days and go exploring. on wednesday i drove down to the town of barstow, california. all day today, thursday, i went around exploring. i took my car off-roading on some pretty ragged dirt roads. my car is filthy! it was so much fun.

i have my two big camers with me. on tuesday night i finished making a lens board adapter so i could fit technika style lens boards on my burke & james 8×10. i’m finding a couple of my 4×5 lenses have enough coverage for the larger format.

i’ve been shooting down here.. not so much, but having lots of fun. polaroids, 4×5, and 8×10. it is so hot and the days are so bright, my film is too fast for what i need.

oh, i came across a place called “Dunes”. it is about 5 miles out of town, west i think. i think, because the compass in my car doesn’t know where to point. anyways, there’s this big road-side sign that says Dunes. behind the sign is a couple short palm trees. behind the trees there is a driveway and 5 boarded up shelters. what is so weird about this, is it exactly what a nightmare i had looks like. i discovered the Dunes site last night, and when it was getting dark i actually got spooked. as in, i felt scared to stick around there.

i went back today to go shoot it. i got a shot of the sign, but the sun wasn’t right to shoot the shelters. i came back later in the day, but there was a guy there. i guess he lives there. i didn’t want to mess with someone living in an abandoned building, so i took off. that place really creeps me out.

i’m disappointed i didn’t shoot the buildings themselves. they really remind me of my nightmare. i have at least the sign.

i’ve learned today that you shouldn’t judge a building by its appearance. just because the place is sealed, completely wrecked, boarded up, or otherwise behind a fence, that doesn’t mean someone doesn’t live there. barstow and surrounding area is littered with such places. some places i would have guessed were long since abandoned, had it not been for vehicles parked out front.

anyways.. there’s a 60% chance of rain here tomorrow. i will head back north.

here’s my list from the trip so far:
- i need a hand-held gps device so i can mark locations and return to them. that, and tell what direction i’m headed!
- need the windshield replaced on my car. a rock hit it and made a big crack. the crack was growing about 1cm/hr on my way down.
- car dirty filty. washie washie.
- i need to make a new lens board adapter. this one won’t last, and i love having shorter lenses for 8×10. 4×5 seems small :)
- if jason goes to the desert, remind him to bring slower film.

my brother ranier came up for the weekend. we had a full weekend:

dinner at jeanty at jack’s. garage sale swooping. walking down mission and valencia in the mission.. cellphone-camera-shooting lots of street art. we saw nacho libre. we walked, bussed, then railcar’d to san francisco art institute’s exhibition, “open tagging“. we rounded out the weekend by visiting boman at the parade, a yearly event which brings 500,000 people to the city!

it was a lot of fun.

(585×800)

toronto is littered with tall residential towers. most of the ones i look at were around thirty floors tall. lots of steel and glass in the new towers. there are so many, and their architecture has so little variation, they all begin to look the same.

i was driving around one day with the camera in the car. i spotted this tower in particular next to a park. i setup my tripod and begain work on the shot.

a girl stopped by to see what i was doing. i told her about the conference and the camera. she stuck around until i shot the polaroid, so i could show her. in a thick filipina accent, she told me this was the singer building for retarded people. after several back-and-forths, i realized it was a senior building for retired people. hehe

she suggested i check out the castle a few blocks away. it happened to be casa loma, which i did check out after i returned from montreal.

(585×800)

polaroid type 54.

this is massey hall in toronto. it has a beautiful brick facade with a symmetrical black staircase facing the street.

i scouted this location before. one day i took erna (eric rose’s wife) out for a drive to this building, since she liked staircases. i couldn’t quite get the coverage i wanted with my 90mm lens. i decided to try something closer (still shooting from across the street). i tried 5.6/210.

after my first polaroid turned out well, i realized i could wait for the morning traffic to pause then catch individual pedestrians in front of the lens. this is a quarter second exposure.

it was often that i realized 90mm isn’t wide enough for me. that, or i’m always shooting too close.

back from toronto. i’m tired. i have what i anticipate to be a stressful week at work starting tomorrow. i’m way overdue for a haircut. i’ll probably upload the digital camera pics somewhere to work on during breaks tomorrow.

back in toronto. i spent the past several days in montreal, a fantastic city. i have notes for the blog and many clothing related receipts to get stamped :) the next few nights is basically relax, have fun, and hopefully try out the two restaurants on our hit list (oro and pangea).

today was the last day of the first annual apug conference.

the only conference business i wanted to attend to was the closing remarks/speeches. i went to the site at the designated time and nobody was around. the organizer (mister callow) said to me, “you are the man!” he was impressed that i even showed up. it seemed like no big deal to me.

i talked to john a bit. i talked again with sandy. i shook hands with sean ross (the guy who runs apug as he left. i hung out for a little bit, then took off.

the conference was fantastic.

now i’m off to montreal for the next four days. i’m staying at a bed and breakfast inn. then i’ll be back in toronto in downtown for a few days until i’m returning home. toronto has been so fun!

today was the first workshop day of the conference.

after my first cup of second cup, i headed to the gallery. the attendance to michael and paula’s workshop on vision was good. it was interesting to hear about their processes in a well articulated manner. they showed tonnes of images and talked about what they saw that led them to capture the image.

i was warned that their content is not for everybody, and that certainly seemed to be the case. but i like their approach and will incorporate some of it in my own work.

after lunch, there was a panelist discussion on availability of product, a hot topic in the field. the word is, in europe film is already making a comeback in the commercial sector. companies like ilford and distributors like j and c are clearly committed to keeping their products alive and shipping. so it was all pretty reassuring.

after the festivities were over and the afternoon workshops were starting, i wandered off on my own. i ended up driving into downtown and taking college ave all the way into liberty village.

i was standing in a park shooting a tall residential tower. this girl and her dog walked by and she was looking at the camera. so i spoke up and showed her the ground glass. this is the first time i’ve ever invited a stranger to look at the glass. we talked a bit. she explained that the tower was the singer center for retarded people. only i had misunderstood her. her filipina accent had badgered the words senior center for retired people. she hung out for a bit as i processed the polaroid. she pointed to casa loma, a castle just a few blocks away. i didn’t have enough time left on the meter to check it out.

my next shooting was some houses further down college. at one location, i was on the sidewalk in the center of a bunch of residences. a guy stepped out and identified my camera correctly as a large format camera. he has lived in the same unit in that complex for 23 years now. during that time he’s seen 4 residents die. he also talked to me about his guitar playing. he’s been playing forever. he plays anything from jazz to 1950s (pre-beatles) on acoustic. just recently he purchased an electric guitar for $3500, the most expensive posession he has. his guitar was made in petaluma, california. he asked if i could make a photo for him, so i offered a polaroid. i took it, it came out fine, and he was very pleased with it. he offered to pay for it, but i refused. it just felt good/right. i took a polaroid for myself then shot it on sheet film. then i was off to liberty village.

in liberty village i talked to even more strangers. i was shooting a walk with pictures of flowers painted on it. a woman explained to me that the paintings were showing you which flowers were planted under each image. i should come back when the flowers are in bloom, she said.

i ended my day in queen west. everything in toronto is named after the street or intersection it’s on. yonge (pronounced “young”) street bisects the downtown east to west. so queen st west of yonge is queen west.

queen west is a cool, hip neighborhood with lots of boutique shops and restaurants. i finally found an article of clothing for myself (a roots polo) then walked around for quite a while. i ended with dinner at peter pan bistro.. it looked promising, but i’d rate it as mediocre. maybe my san francisco standards are getting high?

so today was full of learning, exploring a city i am liking more and more, and being more social and public with my shooting.

i was greeted by simon galley (sales director european and export markets, ilford). sat and chatted with several published photographers. had dinner with sandy king, inventor of the pyrocat-hd film developer.

on one hand, it’s great to learn from those who are doing great work. on the other hand, i feel like such a nobody.

but i am still having fun. and i am stoked about the product show and the workshops i am signed up for. and eric, another amateur i’ve befriended, suggested i check out the distillery.

i’ve been shooting polaroid and delta.

good: finding decent compositions
good: exposure is decent
bad: going too fast, making mistakes

eric gave me some good ideas about photo groups. basically, a general photo group will have lots of disparate ideas, formats, and methods. you might have someone who loves street shooting in 35mm and someone who enjoys landscapes in 11×14. eric started a large format group. it sounds like a good idea. still thinking about that.

oh, and canadian hersey bars are better than american hersey bars.