Chat Noir

My buddy Steven asked me to sit for some photos last month, a request I say yes to as often as I can for the homies. I’m about as comfortable in front of the camera as behind it, due in part to a lifelong practice of self-portraiture.

Like these five photos, taken by myself in my apartment before Steven arrived, because I had some time to kill and a roll of CineStill 800T (great for indoor low light), and because I was already all dressed up.

If you look closely at my right fist, I’m squeezing the rubber bulb of a cable release—a long tube that screws into my camera’s shutter button at one end, and has the hollow rubber ball at the other end. When I squeeze the ball, air shoots through and presses the shutter. (I have a 20’ one I got from B&H that’s pretty much exactly like this.)

Some of Steven’s shots from this night can be found on my IG and probably at some point on his, but still visit @mestonmestoff to peep his other work.

Thanks for reading, you’re beautiful.

Best Foot Upward

I don’t like to edit photos.

I’m kind of bad at it, probably because I don’t like to do it, and have avoided developing the skill. One of the things I like about film photography is I don’t have to—the basic corrections done by the lab during the scanning process are all I need, and it’s rare for me to make any addition adjustments.

But I do like a specialty film, stocks that are pre-exposed or otherwise tweaked prior to shooting them for the purpose of achieving some sort of color-shift or effect in the photos. I recently bought a roll of Amber D400, a color negative stock reformatted from movie film to be used in still cameras. The antihalation layer is removed from the original movie format, allowing the film to be developed in traditional C-41 chemicals (what is used to develop most color negative film stocks for still cameras), and from what I can tell from a couple Google searches, has something to do with the amber hue found in the processed images.

The result feels like a lower contrast version of Dubblefilm’s Pacific, which casts a similar (but maybe more saturated) hue. Both stocks give me 1970s Cali vibes, perfect for shooting skate or surf.

I love catching skaters flying through in close focus, sometimes capturing only their dangling feet and board in frame. I shot this roll on a late afternoon at Texas Beach skate park, shortly before rain clouds rolled through. The amber hue of the film stock seems (so far) to give a favorable effect in both sunny and overcast conditions, but I’ll definitely be shooting more to further test it out.

Image of Amber D400 film found via Google

The best price I’ve found for Amber D400 is at B&H, $15.99 for 27 exposures at time of this posting.

I normally post collections of work primarily here with one or two images on Instagram as a teaser, but typically do share all skate photography on IG as well so the homies can tag themselves. So if you landed here via Google, check out my profile here for more!

Thanks for reading, you’re beautiful.

Howdy-Ho

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve made a blog post. Since then, spring has officially hit and with it, a busier time of year for me. Since beginning this blog a few months ago, I’ve mostly used it when I have a larger collection of photos to share, some sort of cohesive set. As I type this, my “unposted” folder is a menagerie of one-offs, snapshots of friends, shots that didn’t make it into sets I’ve already posted—things I would typically post on Instagram but not make a full blog post with.

Also as I type this, eight rolls of undeveloped film are enroute to the lab to be processed, brimming with blog posts. I can’t even remember what’s on all of that film, as is usually the case, but I know there is more macro moss, skate, and tattoo series work to come.

Last year I shot 95 rolls of film. That’s almost a roll of film every four days. I entered 2022 feeling like I wanted to shoot less film—I sent a lengthy voice memo to my friend Amy that February rambling about how I wanted to take fewer frames and make more intentional work, and limit the projects I invested time into. At the time I was feeling a bit directionless in photography, and I didn’t want to waste film on things that didn’t mean anything to me.

Then, really, the opposite happened. I photographed everything. I photographed usual suspects like skating; I began photographing surfing and rodeos for the first time; I took self-portraits and portraits of friends; I documented my days and took lots of snapshots; I launched my tattoo stories series; I photographed my cats and plants and buildings and flowers and beaches and mountains and family. And all of it meant something to me.

I don’t know what to expect this year, even as we’re a quarter in. I’ve developed some solid projects I’ll continue working on; I’ll go where the lens takes me. I think this current batch of film I just sent out is probably the beginning of the year’s onslaught—from here the days will just get longer, the sun will shine later, daytrip roads will be calling, skate parks, surf breaks, bull pens, secret wooded enclaves with just me and a tripod. In the meantime, here are a few random shots from that unposted pile of detritus, just little moments my lens found her way to. Thanks for reading, you’re beautiful.