Folk Fest on film 2025

I'll put these up here too, although I don't think they turned out as well as last year's. I'm not sure if it was the type of film I used (ISO 400 vs 200) or the haze in the air from the wildfires, but these are just not as crisp or bright for some reason.

 

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4th on 35mm

Just got this one film shot of my parents with all of their grandkids on the 4th of July:

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Peaceful dock sit

Sorry for the slow down on the blog. I have a few things to post, but life has been a little crazy lately. I am looking forward to a more regular routine and also fear it won't be any less busy than this chaotic summer that is quickly escaping us. For now, please enjoy this 35mm film shot of V sitting on Linda's dock on Pleasant Lake.

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Winnipeg Folk Fest 2024 - 35mm edition

I'm going to be parsing out some of these photos on my MLMM Instagram account over the next few weeks, but followers of this blog get to see them all together up front. These are the film shots I took in Winnipeg this year. I limited myself to one roll of 36 exposures over the three days of the festival, which really got me to stop and question if a shot was worth taking. Other times, I had to act fast and not over think it. Most of these are photo-journalistic in style and off-topic for a family photo blog, but my Folk Fest coverage would not feel complete without them, so here you go...

 

My biggest challenge with this old, manual camera is getting human eyes in focus. I'm still learning to embrace the technical imperfections. That said, it's hard to take a bad photo of little Alice:

Bonnie Light Horseman:

My favorite shot from the roll:

Palmyra:

The campground:

The bike lot:

Big Blue Stem at golden hour:

My ISO 200 film speed was a little slow for these late-day shots.

Something productive from the 45 minutes I spent waiting in line for a plain hamburger:

Festival sights:

Alice and the cheeseballs:

An older kid at the beach, also indulging in the cheeseball:

Ruth Moody:

Band of Horses:

This is what I'm here for:

Getting a little experimental... This maybe shouldn't make the cut, but I'm starting to like it:

It is challenging to photograph strangers straight-on, in front of them, without their permission, but getting over it can open you up to a whole new world of photography.

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23 years ago

Our actual anniversary is today, and you know I love to bring out old photos to mark the occasion (see my history tag for more). This year's selection was taken at the Como Park Conservatory late in the spring after we first met. We were just a couple of kids!

We've lived a lot of life since then and have a ways to go. It sure is nice to have a lovely partner like R to experience it all with. Happy anniversary, my dear R!

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Forgotten film photo

I rarely use my 35mm film camera on people (because it is so hard to focus on faces), but I apparently made an exception here... I don't even remember taking this one:

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Leadbetter beach on 35mm

I recently got more film developed. Some of the results go back to our Santa Barbara trip from last spring. I've been posting shots on my MMLM Instagram account (and there's more to come), but here are a couple from one of our favorite places to hang out. My digital camera just doesn't capture tones like this...

Shoreline Cafe:

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Creating

This has probably been the most quiet the blog has been since it started. There are more posts coming, I promise! I have been busy creatively on a multitude of projects and it's been very satisfying, but in the process I've had to give up documenting my family life a bit.

These photos may be a bit of topic for the blog, but I wanted to share some shots of me directing my new short film (yeah, the same one I was directing last October). We have officially finished filming now, although there's still a lot more to do before I call this thing complete. (And before I even get back to working on it, I need to finish editing a music video by an Australian singer-songwriter.)

These were taken by the film's cinematographer, Louis:

 

And this one was taken by one of our extras, Thom:

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Sunset jump

I had another roll of film developed along with that expired roll, and these results turned out much better. Most of the roll is from my exploration of small towns in northern Minnesota and will eventually be posted in this Facebook gallery, but I allowed myself a single attempt at capturing Veronica jumping off the dock at Grandma Linda's place. There's something satisfying about having taken this on an analog, physical format.

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Camp Du Nord, part 2: film

I don't normally use my 35mm camera for family snapshots, but I had this idea to bring it along to Camp Du Nord. It made sense to me to use an analog format during our time away from electronics. (I had my digital camera with too, of course, but there were a few outings where I only brought the 35mm.)

I finished up the existing roll I had in the camera on the first night. These two exposures are fine.

S'more production:

I appreciate the color in those shots more now because...

At Christmas last year, my father-in-law and long-time Four Peas reader (hi, Mike!) gave me a 24-exposure roll of film from an unknown decade that he found in a box somewhere. There was no doubt that it had expired long ago. I knew what I was getting into and that there was a good chance the exposures on it wouldn't turn out. Well, they didn't.

This isn't the first time film has failed me and probably won't be the last. Yet, it was a fun experiment and there is something to be said about the faded, obscured look of the following shots.

This is the only one I got of the family in a canoe:

We paddled to a rocky island on Burntside and explored:

R held onto the canoe because there was nowhere to land it:

That's Omri scrambling on a rock:

Back at the cabin now, Omri is getting some time with the loom:

Veronica can be seen here at the edge of a cliff out front of our cabin:

The quality of this one is slightly better:

I thought this one would have made a good print, but it would have been all about the color and textures that are not at all present here:

Coffee tastes so good in the woods:

This may have been my favorite shot from the roll if it had worked out. You can kind of see the island on the water:

I have a few others as well that were captured better with my iPhone. We'll look at those next time.

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