Location

America
  [ ] Los Angeles
  [ ] Joshua Tree
  [ ] Salvation Mountain

Travel Dates

Camera

Ricoh GR1s, Kyocera SlimT, Bronica SQA

Film Stocks

KODAK PORTRA 400VC (EXPIRED), FUJIFILM 160NS, FUJIFILM RDP-III PROVIA 100F, FUJI SUPERIA X-TRA 400, FUJI FILM PRO 400H, (EXPIRED)EXPIRED SLIDE FILM

Travel Notes

Work found me in LA again.

Actually, I was in LA on two separate occasions in September of 2016, but for the sake of convenience I combined them into one post.

Work was intense at the start of the trip but relaxed leading into my last weekend. A group of other global coworkers and I decided to make the best of it and drive down to Joshua Tree National Park and Salvation Mountain for the long weekend. And what road trip through the California desert would be complete without a visit to the Integratron, the "Fusion of Art, Science, and Magic"?

Joshua Tree was one of the most photogenic places I had ever been to. Otherworldly. I would stop the car every 10 minutes to make a photograph. I can't wait to go back.

Also this trip was the first time in my life I had tried surfing. And ever since then I have been looking for my next chance to do so.

It may seem like I had decided to bring the big guns for this work trip, but I assure you it was not intentional. The only reason I brought 3 cameras was because I could not decide which one camera to bring. So I brought 3.

To this day it is still the most cameras I ever brought on a trip and ties the most camera's I've brought to a shoot.

And expired films, again 🤦🏽‍♂️

Shooting The Bronica SQA, especially in the desert, was a great introduction to medium format. There was so much I wanted to shoot, and for the most part could take my time to compose each shot. The picture quality is phenomenal. If only I had used reliable film. I would say the SQA is a smaller, more compact medium format camera, if anything a little heavy. But nonetheless I carried it during my walks with little annoyances.

Can we take a minute to appreciate the awesomeness of the Kyocera SlimT (also known as the Yashica T4)? The camera has almost no buttons and is paired with such an amazing piece of glass (Carl Zeis Tessar 35). Even with shitty expired film it out performed all expectations. The only problem is how prone the electronics are to busting, often rendering the camera useless.  Unfortunately my particular camera's days were numbered, but I'm happy to have shown it Southern California before it decided to leave us.