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| From April No Kings Day, Bowling Green, OH. Nikon F3. |
I thought that I was originally going to write a summary of what’s happened photographically this year, but I’ve decided to make this a more personal approach, because, in the end, that’s what matters. If you have been following Random Camera Blog all these 21 years, you know that I try to stay positive.
I know that I can only control what happens within my sphere of influence - home, family, friends, and my own endeavors. However, we do not live in a vacuum, cocooned away from the reality that there are real threats to our existence and our democracy. Last November, I photographed some of the destruction from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, and posted that hopefully, what I photographed wasn’t going to be a metaphor for a Trump administration. Well, it’s even worse than that.
Onward.
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| Starling Murmuration, Feb. 2025, Amenia, NY Spotmatic, Ilfocolor 400 |
I tallied up all the film that I shot this year, and it came to an astonishing 170 rolls. About 80% are 35mm, the rest being medium format + 1 roll of 110. That figure does not include all the digital images that I made, which I have not bothered to check. Surely, many hundreds of digital images, too. The lesson to take away from this is that when you carry a camera around with you, you'll get more photos. Now, I have not even gone so far as to what percent are "keepers," but I am pretty sure there is a higher percentage of "keepers" in film than in digital. Part of that is that I did a lot of lens testing, meaning I was shooting see what kind of bokeh certain manual lenses have, etc. Anyhow, that's a lot of film, even for me.
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| January, Wassaic, NY. Pentax Spotmatic, DerevPan 100 |
In June 2024, I published Monochrome Mania No. 13 - Home and Farm News. It was a labor of love, to be sure. It was a celebration of Charlotte Murphy (my mother in law) and her 98 years on this earth. It resonated with a lot of folks that read it, and it remains something that I’m very proud of. Charlotte passed away in February of this year, not quite making to 99. As the year has progressed, I find myself thinking of her and how often we would correspond. Adrienne, my wife, has also expressed similar thoughts, and I know she misses her mom very much. The farmhouse featured in MM No. 13 now sits empty, devoid of the things that made it a home, and a gathering place for family. As I write this, the sale of the property is going forward and to someone that really wants to live there. I’ll be sure to send them a copy of the issue so that they will have a record of what it was like before.
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| Virginia, Rural Retreat, Feb. 2025, Minolta X7A, Fujicolor 200 |
My output this year zine-wise is at a low point. Starting in 2020, I published at least 3 issues of Monochrome Mania each year. This year, it was just one, No. 15. I also published a separate zine on the French Broad River before Hurricane Helene. I’ve received high praise for both publications, but sales have lagged quite a bit, with stacks of them sitting on the shelf. So, is it that my zines aren’t good or is it that the economy isn’t that good? Maybe the zine universe has become saturated, though I do not think that my publications are zines in the strict sense of the word. I do think that if you have less money to spend, you are not going to spend it on frivolous things, so maybe that’s what is happening.
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| Floyd County, Va. Fujica GL-690, the "Texas Leica." I sold that camera to buy a Pentax 17. |
I did a few road trips this year — several trips to New York State, the trip to Arizona, and two trips to northern Ohio amounted to 12,330 miles. I love driving, and photographing along the way is something I really enjoy doing. The more that I can avoid traveling on an Interstate route, the richer the experience becomes. If it’s just a matter of getting to a destination for a specific purpose, and not a photo-jaunt, then yeah, I’ll take the highway. But if I can avoid the Interstate, I will. You hear a lot about “flyover country” and yes, there are some areas of our country that from the air, look uninspiring. However, driving through them is to me at least, photographically rewarding. In my travels on many US-routes this year, I gained a much better appreciation of the areas that I drove through. I definitely found a lot to photograph, and accumulated a lot of images that could be used in different projects. If I’m shooting film, I figure about 2 rolls of 35mm per day unless I am staying put in an area for a while. Then that goes up in proportion to what I find interesting.
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| Floyd, Va. Ilford disposable half-frame camera |
The trip to northern NY and seeing former high school classmates that I’d not seen in 50 years was quite satisfying. I probably should have planned it to stay a few more days in the Adirondack region. I did come away with some very good photographs, though. I grew up at the edge of the Adirondacks, and having the time to explore areas that were previously unfamiliar to me was really quite rewarding. Late summer is a good time to visit there, as the hordes of blackflies and mosquitoes that make life miserable in early summer are pretty much gone by August.
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| Steele's Tavern, Virginia, US-11. Nikon F3HP, Ilford HP-5. |
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| Three young men and their bikes, Potsdam, NY. Nikon FE, Aurora 800. |
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| Tupper Lake, NY. old TB sanitarium. Nikon F3HP, Kentmere 200. |
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| Tupper Lake, NY. Nikon FE, Aurora 800. |
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| St. Regis River, Hopkinton, NY. Horizon 202, Derevpan 100 |
I took two trips to Bowling Green, Ohio to meet up with Mike Raso and the other Film Photography Project gang to do some podcast recordings and some photowalks. When I lived in Ann Arbor, MI that would have been a quick one-hour trip. But from NC, it is over 500 miles, and long day of driving. I think the next time I do that I’ll spend a night in Chillicothe, Ohio and take my time along US-23, and then arrive in Bowling Green on the day we are supposed to meet, instead arriving the night before. I have travelled US-23 a lot, and it seems that for the past 45 years, I have lived within a mile or less of that route. Photographing along it has been a long-term project for me, and maybe I’ll turn it into a photo essay at some point.
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| Mike Raso, on a rainy photo walk in Bowling Green, OH. Nikon F3HP, Ilford HP-5 |
In April of this year, I finally purchased a Pentax 17 half-frame 35mm camera. I’ve found it to be an excellent little camera and the results from it have been wonderful. I’ve posted about it here on RCB, and it has a place in my camera bag. It’s a great camera for travel, and I highly recommend it. Going the other way, I acquired an Intrepid 4x5 field camera in November. Years ago, I had several 4x5 cameras, and sold all that stuff before I moved to NC. So, I’m looking forward to making 4x5 negatives once again. I never thought that I’d get back into large format, but with no real darkroom, and a daylight developing tank, my Epson scanner and Canon Pro 200 printer, I guess I’m back in the game. My first impression with the Intrepid is that it’s a bit fiddly, but it certainly is not heavy.
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| Waynesville, NC. Pentax 17, overexposed FPP Retrochrome 400 |
I have owned a Pentax 6x7 for over 20 years, and this year I used it quite a bit. I think buying a new grip for the right side - a plastic 3D printed piece - has made the camera so much easier to handle without a tripod, and that certainly allowed me to use it more on the Arizona trip. The lens that gets the most use on that camera is the 90mm, followed by the 55mm.
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| Tucson, AZ. Pentax 6x7, Harman Phoenix II film. |
If you follow me on Instagram or Flickr, you will know that I shoot a lot of digital as well as film. For me, each has a specific purpose. This year I have shot a lot with a Pentax K20D DSLR that I originally purchased (used) to test M42 mount lenses for my research on the book that I’m writing on Pentax Takumars and Spotmatic cameras. With a M42 to K adapter, it’s a pretty easy way to go. However, I’ve also come to appreciate the build and utility of the K20D, and it operates very similarly to my Nikon DSLRs. I’m sure that if someone dropped a Pentax K3 Mk III Monochrome on my lap, I’d be grateful. In a typical year, I usually shoot a little over 100 rolls of film. This year, during the road trip to Arizona, I shot 37 rolls in 2 weeks, and quite a few frames on the Pentax K20D. The lens on the K20D that I used the most is the Sigma 30mm/1.4.
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| old schoolhouse, Kansas. Pentax K20D. |
One of the objectives on my Arizona road trip was to see how well two Vivitar K-mount SLRs would do. I brought a Vivitar V2000 and a V3800N for most of the 35mm photography. However, while in Tucson, I purchased a Pentax KX, which took over the color duties from the V3800. Both Vivitar SLRs performed beautifully, and it’s a testament to the Cosina-made bodies that people might put down because they are not Nikon, Canon, Pentax, etc. On the used market, they go for a fraction of the price of the big brands and still take the same quality images. I love my Nikon system, but you don’t need the best equipment to take meaningful photographs.
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| Salt River Canyon, AZ. Vivitar V2000, Kentmere 400, red filter |
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| abandoned Post Office, near Dos Cazebas, AZ. Vivitar V2000, Kentmere 400 |
My trips to Floyd, Virginia continued this year. I met Russ Young in 2024, and we have become good friends. We both feel like we have known each other a long time, and we have great conversations about photography. He was fortunate to be a young photographer in the southwest US back when many of the “greats” were there. I cherish his stories about that period. My only regret is that I didn’t meet Russ much earlier - he ain’t getting any younger, and neither am I. Anyhow visiting him at his farm in Floyd and traveling around the back roads of SW Virginia have been a great experience, and we will be collaborating on an issue of Monochrome Mania.
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| Floyd farmland. Agfa Clack, Tmax 100. |
I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube this year. I find most of the “popular” photography channels to be entertaining, but short of substance. Maybe because I already know a lot about photography, I don’t need some 30-something photographer’s advice about a camera or how much they like Cinestill 800T. However, my favorite photography channels are Vintage Camera Digest and The Old Camera Guy. What I have been watching the most are several travelogue channels - Peter Santenello, and Travels with a Wise Guy. Those are wonderful ways to acquaint one with different parts of the country, and it’s fun seeing them visit the same roads/places that I have travelled. The same goes for many of the books that I have read in the past year -I finally discovered Paul Theroux’s book, The Deep South, more Tony Horwitz books about the South (and sad to find out that he died of a heart attack), and some other authors on travel/history of the west and the the plains.
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| available in my Etsy store |
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| Reopening the Blue Ridge Parkway was a bonus. Minolta X700, Rollei Retro 80s |
This year was one of recovery from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Travel along the Blue Ridge Parkway was restored as far N as Mount Mitchell State Park by early fall. So many areas were impacted by the storm, and it’s really hard to grasp the enormity of the damage. While Asheville received lots of attention, the more remote mountain communities were devastated, and are still recovering. My favorite spots that I would go to for a lot of my photography are really no longer what they were, if they exist at all. The lack of access over the past year has made me travel to places outside the area impacted by Helene, so maybe that’s a good thing for me.
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| Big Ivy Historical Park, Minolta A5, Svema 100. |
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| upper reaches of Ivy Creek, August 2025. Pentax K20D |
This past year has made me appreciate my friends and immediate family a great deal. The kindness of people makes all the difference in a world that has gone into one crisis after another. So, my parting words for the year are - Be kind, make a difference, embrace your passions and get joy from what you do.
Let's make it through 2026, eh?
