Ala Moana paddlers at sunset.
As life is slowing working itself back into simplicity, picking up cameras and walking around soothes the restless beasts of boredom.
I waltzed down to Ala Moana on Friday and today with a new film in the Leica, Ilford XP2 (a monochromatic film I decided to try comparing it to Kodak 400CN–essentially, black and white film developed in C-41–more later.) I decided to keep the Summilux 50mm lens on the M6 and readied myself for a few surprises. Film always allows for so many mistakes, user and quality, but always delivers that organic feel which digital can’t touch. Mistakes are good, as it keeps us in a real realm of reality. Digital kinda creates perfect life…almost like a video game or cartoon.
Walking back from Chinatown this morning proved worth wild…with trusty camera at side, I found myself standing in front of a unslightly smoking memorial. About 8-10 guys on scooters were buzzing around the backside of a funeral home on Kukui St. Several of them formed a line back spinning their tires throwing smoke and noise into the air. What a racket but what a site.
Come to find out I see a guy I know, Smokey is his name and I actually shot him a few months back AND oddly enough, I blogged about him and posted his photo.
See here at
http://marcpix.blogspot.com/2007/10/smokie.html
He told me one of their “gang’s” friend died in a bike crash. 80’s miles and hour into a wall. Bam…what a way to go. His friends were giving him a really noisy send off. I wondered what his family thought of the ruckus his buddies were giving him. I guess no worry about the environment with the smoke.
And speaking of Smokie, he was quiet the character…40oz half drank bottle of beer at hand. And it wasn’t even noon. Gotta love it.
Oh–and the film. Kodak and Ilford make these great monochromatic films you can process at any daylab and get great black and white images. The reason I love using it as you can use digital ice from the Nikon scanner programs to clean up dust, etc. Traditional b/w film doesn’t allow good results using “ice.” And besides, a hour’s processing for cheap at Longs really saves the day and the pocketbook.