Plus X Film

Square Format was not a ‘social media thing’ when I was shooting film. After my initial 35mm camera, I moved onto a Rolleiflex, twin reflex. What’s that you ask? Just one of the most amazing cameras ever made, that’s what! With a waist level finder, I was forced (not that I resisted) into a POV that was not eye level. More, as the name implies, ‘waist level’. The two lenses on the front each served a purpose: one was for viewing through and the other was for the ‘taking’ of the photograph. This image was captured in the garden of my casita in Baja California. Shot on Plus-X film, I’m pretty sure. I scanned the negative at very high resolution and then manipulated the file in Photoshop and one of my favorite plugins designed to emulate analog film. The irony! From analog, to digital and then processed through a filter to make this image look ‘analog’. I seriously need to acquire a film camera again! I wonder if when I post this square image (not a ‘square crop’) on Instagram this evening if anyone will suspect…

Scouting for roads in a part of Northern California I was unfamiliar with, I turned onto a narrow two lane. The vegetation was thick and rugged on both sides. There was a smattering of the normal barbed wire and steel post fences common to ranch land, and then I saw the first wooden fence…then another, and another. They all had a similar feel and had the most stunning patina created by weather and time. They obviously had not been maintained for many years, and were falling apart in the most lyrical of ways. Bending and twisting, at times, having become one with the forest. After my commercial shoot wrapped, back in LA I decided to make a trip back to the area and document these beautiful shapes. This image was captured on 120 film, Plus X to be exact. I warm-toned the image slightly. It seemed the appropriate thing to do. Robert Frost once wrote, “Fences make good neighbors”. He might have had this one in mind.