It’s Friday. I’ve had my breakfast and coffee, a yoga practice and even a bit of work, but I’ve really just been looking forward to going to Venice this afternoon. Earlier this week I dug out my long-forgotten Holga and ran a few rolls of black and white film through it. Today I have some Kodak Ektar on deck.
I’m telling myself that the trip to Venice is primarily to use the Holga, but since I’ll already be there, I might as well visit Blue Bottle Coffee, Blue Star Donuts, and Salt & Straw Ice Cream. The coffee and donut are for immediate consumption and the ice cream will be brought home for later. It’s a treat trifecta that is difficult to match.
The first two images were snapped from the driver’s seat of my Jeep on my way to Abbot Kinney Blvd.
As in most beach cities in Southern California, street parking is almost non-existent. I was lucky today, circling the blocks only four times before I spotted the welcome sight of reverse lights lighting up on a parked car in front of me.
The food truck culture is strong around Los Angeles. This is the first time I’ve seen a Spanish Tapas and sandwich truck. Too bad it was already closed.
The truck was parked directly in front of Blue Bottle Coffee, so a cold brew with a splash of oat milk to go with my Blueberry Bourbon Basil donut from Blue Star is close by.
The sun was in and out all day. Many of the shots were in shadow and turned out underexposed. Not a good combination with color negative film which, to my eye, is a lot less forgiving than almost any black and white film when underexposed.
The remaining photos are some random shots from my walk.
I finished two rolls of Ektar before my final stop at Salt & Straw Ice Cream. A pint of Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons will be a welcome evening treat for the rest of the week.
I’ve had some time to rethink my earlier, flippant remarks about the Holga not needing much thought ( Toy Camera ). It may not take much in the way of instruction to use the camera, but it’s loose construction, unique plastic lens and lack of focus and exposure control do make it challenging to visualize the resulting image. Challenging in a good way.
I think this camera has a spot in my bag on our upcoming trip to NYC in a couple of weeks.
I like these photos a lot. You definitely need to use this more.
Thank you. This was good practice for me. I was trying for some of the reflections I was seeing and mostly got the backs of the people I was photographing, but not the reflection. I also need to get in the habit of very tight framing, to the point of cutting things off in the viewfinder.