angel island 2004

we went to angel island for buzz's birthday. me, melissa, buzz, janelle, and richie, the guy who drew the cover for Green Day's "Dookie" record. we ran around the island at night, climbed its highest points, watched the city run silently across the water beyond us, saw the lights of Tiburon sparkle in the black night, watched oil tankers and other massive ships pass across our panoramic view so slow and huge it felt fake. melissa and i were the only ones who didn't bring a tent, so we got drunk and slept under the stars on top of this abandoned Army bunker. I had weird dreams on top of that thing that i still remember (partially).

I shot these with the Seagull 205A, and just got the film developed today. pretty impressive for a little Chinese-made rangefinder, but I'm still having issues with some light leaks and the film not advancing correctly. i'm having the same thing with the first roll i shot with the Pen-FT. maybe i'm not loading the film in the right way or something... I still have to figure that out. The Pen-FT works very well; i'll be posting pics of that soon from Portland and Peaks Island, Maine. I think the light sensors are a little off, but the images may be a little blown out due to the whole half-frame thing and I'll have to correct the exposures in Photoshop. I also recently developed some other film from 2004-2005 of this band in Dolores Park, and another roll from the Tampa Am contest back in 2000, but didn't find much of use. Oh well. As a better man than me once said, sometimes you get the fish, sometimes the fish get you.

Also, my cousin started his own photo blog. He's just getting rolling, but i expect to see some really cool stuff from him i've never seen before on it. he works a lot with natural light, long exposures, and unconventional perspectives. it's a good start so far. check it out at Purple Shade of Snow.

[edit: I realized I did this in 2004 not 2005 as I previously wrote.]