Friday May 8th. Yeah, it’s my birthday. Again. I’m 55 years old. I am divisible by 11.
It’s our only full day in Michigan. I might write up the reason for this trip at some point, but not today. Suffice to say we spent a long day here (and even though it is after 10pm and I am super old, the day is not over). Tomorrow we go home. We will cross the US/Canadian border two more times but one time will be at a new location.
There is a teeny tiny possibility that we might stop very briefly at Niagara Falls. The first time my Dad ever let me shoot a photo with his SLR (a Pentax K1000) was at Niagara Falls. I have a film camera here with me but it’s not Dad’s K1000. Still, it would be fun to take a shot or two of the Canadian falls on film again.
Speaking of SLR’s, I have one coming from eBay at some point next week. I had planned to wait a few weeks before I went out to shoot film again, but now I’ll need to shoot a test roll through the new camera so I can get it developed and prove everything works (oh please let everything work) before I take it out for real. That will hopefully happen next weekend. Fingers crossed.
Until then, I have a long, long drive on the books for tomorrow. An hour or so North of Detroit to a half hour North of Boston. Wish me and my wife and my step son luck on this crazy journey.
We drove across Quebec and Ontario for ten hours or so and then crossed back into the US in Michigan.
Now Jen and I are in the hotel room where the WiFi doesn’t work. I’m Sad because the three rolls of film I shipped out last week have been developed, scanned, and uploaded to The Darkroom site and I can’t get them onto my laptop.
That’s it. I’m leaving the country tonight. Just you wait and see. When I go to sleep tonight I will not be in the United States of America.
That sounds super dramatic but let me assure you it is not. It’s true, but it’s not what it seems. It’s not some politically motivated emigration. It’s more like it gets me where I am going.
My step son’s girlfriend is from Michigan, near(ish) to Detroit. Her family is going through some stuff right now (no, it’s none of your business) and my step son, my wife, and I are heading there to show a little moral support (no I am not sharing specifics. As previously stated, it’s none of your business).
My step son and his girlfriend are both students at schools in Burlington, VT. The best highway route involves first driving North across the Canadian border into Quebec, and then driving Southwest past a couple of Great Lakes and recrossing the border into Michigan. Staying in the US involves detouring around those Great Lakes which adds hours to the trip.
So the plan tonight is to punch out of work (about 15 minutes from now), load up the car, drive to Burlington to pick up Harry, then drive to a hotel just across the border. Then tomorrow at the crack of dawn start heading around those big lakes. On Saturday we will repeat the route in reverse.
Given the situation in the fascist states of america right now though… leaving Canada is going to be tough. There are a lot of reasons not to leave once you’re there, you know? I’ll do it, but it will be tough, that’s all I’m saying.
Two things happened today that are related to photography fun.
First: I didn’t need it but I did it anyway. I bought yet another camera from eBay. A Nikon F90. It was on my list of cameras to look for when I bought my last film camera last year. I ended up going for a much cheaper Nikon F401 which turned out to be broken. It came with a nice 50mm lens though so it was worth it for that.
Similarly, today’s eBay purchase had more to do with the lens. There were two in the sale. One was another 50mm. That’s fine. The other was the reason I pulled the trigger. It is a 70–200mm zoom. I don’t have a good zoom lens that works with any of my film cameras. I do actually have a couple of zooms but they are both in seriously rough shape. Here’s hoping this one works out.
The camera itself looks good. Will it be broken like the last one? Probably, but who can say. It has autofocus and that’s what I really want. If the camera and the zoom lens both work out okay I will be very happy with this deal. If only one of them works, I’ll still be happy. If it’s all junk? Fuck.
What was the second item of note today? I took a bag full of cameras to Boston and went for a 6–7 mile long photo walk. Yikes! I started on Berkeley Street and Commonwealth Ave. I walked up Comm to Mass Ave, then cut across to Newbury Street and walked back down to Clarendon Street. I shot two rolls of film. The sunlight was pretty good, though it was a lot cloudier than the forecast I read last night said it would be.
When I finished that loop I switched from film to digital and did the same route in reverse. Also, that was when the sun went away. I’ll post the digital highlights later.
For now… my legs are super tired from all that walking. I’m old, leave me alone!
Today is May 4, 2026. Four years ago today I went under the knife and had my stomach rewired. Gastric Bypass Surgery. I try to honor the memory of that day by stepping on the scale and weighing myself to see how things are looking.
When I first decided to work toward getting the surgery I weighed 452 pounds. About four months later when I actually went through with it I weighed 431.4 pounds. This morning at about 4:30am when I got out of bed I weighed 231 pounds. I am still down 200.4 pounds since the surgery and 221 pounds over all.
I was really hoping I would still be under 230. Hell, I was hoping I could get back below 220. I am actually up 12.4 pounds since last May the 4th. There is no reason for me to be upset by these numbers. I have always known that they would creep up over time. Still… shit. My next weigh in will be in six months on November 4th. Until then…
I shipped off three rolls of film for developing two days ago. If things go well I’ll have a few more on Tuesday.
Winter is over, folks. It’s time to blow absurd amounts of money on film photography. Bring it on!
I mean… winter is sort of over. It is still pretty cold out. I went to the store this morning and wore a winter jacket. I’m wearing a fleece jacket while sitting in the living room at home. Still… 35mm and 120 film rolls are out in the mail. It’s that time again!
In other news, in about two hours we’re going to leave the house and drive to the airport in Boston. From there we’re driving back to Burlington, VT and then driving home again. It’s going to be a long day of driving. Maybe I should bring a film camera with me. No… not today.
My step daughter is at Logan airport. She’s taking a birthday trip out west and I hope she has a great time. Also, me being me, I am worried about her flight. You know how it is, right?
My wife and I are heading to Vermont to help my step son and his girlfriend out with some difficulties. This weekend I will drive from Methuen, MA to Burlington, VT and then from Methuen, MA to Boston, MA to Burlington, VT to Methuen, MA.
It’s been a while but I did something mildly creative this morning. Not really, but a little bit.
For the first time since August I filled up a back pack with cameras and went outside a-shootin’. Digital, film, the works.
More often than not when I start feeling the photo-takin’ need I head to the ocean at sunrise. That’s what I did today. As sunrises go it sort of blew chunks. The forecast I read last night said it would be clear skies at sunrise today. It was not. Not even close. There was a little gap between the horizon and the cloud cover that sort of let me see the sun when it rose, but it was a pretty underwhelming view. Thanks to our friend the Nikon Z5 with the cheap-ish 85mm Chinese made lens I can show you what I’m talking about…
At least the waves looked cool. They were about as high as this little corner of the Atlantic Ocean gets.
There’s our friend, Mr Sun. It was trying its best to break through.
My sunrise stop this morning was at Salisbury Beach which is on the Massachusetts side of the state line. I was planning on starting at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire, but I needed to stop for gas and I knew there were a few stations on the way to Salisbury so I wouldn’t have to go out of my way. Also, Salisbury is closer to home so it gave me more time to take care of things before the sun came up.
After a few minutes on the beach I wandered around the area a little bit looking for things to shoot… and I ended up more or less shooting the same things that I almost always shoot when I go there. Oh well.
Someday I will be there when these lights are actually on.
Artsy chair pic alert:
Lame life preserver pic alert:
Every now and then the sun would break through the clouds and we’d get a few seconds of glorious golden hour light but the clouds kept getting in the way and blocking the sun. It was a little frustrating.
After a few minutes of wandering around I got in the car and drove up to Hampton Beach. That’s two towns North across the New Hampshire state line. I stopped at a usual fishing boat view. Again, the sun kept breaking through and going away. I think I got some good light here using one of the film cameras, but not so much using the digital.
As usual, let’s all say hello to the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plan before it blows up and melts everyone.
Out on the beach itself, would it surprise anyone to learn that this pic was a total accident? It probably shouldn’t.
The seagulls were my friends today. They mostly didn’t run away from me.
Again, when the sun cooperated the view was fantastic.
I left Hampton Beach and headed South to Plum Island to say hello to the Merrimack River and the Plum Island Lighthouse. I made the obligatory stop at the airfield as well.
By this time the sky was pretty blue. The clouds were losing the battle.
Is the water at Plum Island the bluest water on Earth? It’s gotta be in the running, right?
I mean… seriously… just look at that.
I don’t know anything about this boat except that I shoot it every time I come here.
And in closing… the Plum Island Lighthouse… which has to be the most underwhelming lighthouse in the world. I mean it’s not even as tall as the trees that surround it. It’s also not even on the water. It’s a little ways down the street from the river. How effective can it be?
There you have it. A few highlights from this morning’s wanderings. I also shot some film. I had a black and white roll in my FG-20 that was loaded back in August and still had a few shots left (Kentmere 400). Last night I put a roll of Lomography 800 into Dad’s K1000 and a roll of Kodak Gold 200 into my medium format camera. I finished all three rolls and mailed them off to the lab to get them developed. Hopefully I won’t have to wait too long to share the film version of this masterpiece of a post. Be on the lookout.
Will there be another photowalk tomorrow? Depends on the weather. I am off work again on Tuesday too so there could be something then, again if the weather cooperates. Hopefully it will be better than today but who knows.
It felt good to just go outside and shoot stuff, even if it was really cold on the water. Summer is coming. Maybe some day soon I’ll be able to repeat this experience without wearing a winter jacket. That would be sweet, huh?
It is that time of year again. The time where my loyal readers (all zero of you) start getting inundated with posts where I say something like, just you watch… tomorrow I’m going to go to the ocean and take pics of the sunrise.
I haven’t taken a photo-walk or anything like that since last August. Eight months. I have the day off tomorrow and the forecast calls for clear skies at sunrise. Let’s do this!
The way this works is… I say I am going to go to the ocean to take pics of the sunrise the next day, and then the next day arrives and I stay in bed. That’s how these things usually go. Will that be the case this time?
I have to get through tomorrow (Thursday). If I can do that in one piece I will get to Friday and I have Friday off. I desperately need tomorrow to not suck. I need things to not fall apart for just one day.
I think we can pull this off. Let me rephrase and say I hope we can pull this off.
Inside the Red Head's Head 