Yashica Photos (March - July 2002)
Taken in the Bay Area and New York

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Rani, Berkeley, CA. I admit - I cheated on this with some Photoshop fine-tuning in order to improve the contrast. The original print was very dark and Rani was practically blended into the shadows. I probably should have used a flash but I usually don't like the harshness of them and besides, the meditative quality of this shot might have been ruined.

Rumi and Oliver, Oakland, CA. This is my friend Shiree's three year old son. The picture's not completely focused right but the soft quality of the focus goes well with the general tone of the picture so I didn't mind as much. No doubt, this probably would not have looked as good in color with the same soft focus.

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Oliver, Oakland, CA. This is Rumi's attempt at taking my picture. More proof that a point and shoot can work in anyone's hands - even a 3 year old's.

Hua, Lake Union, WA. The next few pictures were all taken during an April weekend in Seattle during the EMP Music Conference. In color, the background would have jumped out but in B&W, the whole tone of the photograph feels more morose and stark and I think that mood is captured better in B&W.

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Cool Chris, Hush Hush, S.F., CA. Yashica's are supposed to be poor in low light situations, but I beg to differ. This isn't the sharpest photo, but considering it was taken in a dark club using nothing but the built in flash. Peep the color saturation of the blue in the picture - everything here looks rich in tone.

Alex, Red Room, S.F., CA. This was taken in a dark bar that had a ton of red lighting with the flash OFF. It's not a really great shot if only because Alex is a little blurry, but I wasn't expecting that all the red lighting would practically turn this photo into a two-tone shot.

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Amy and Alex, Red Room, S.F., CA. Same bar, about a minute later and this time with flash. Usually, the flash in a totally dark space makes for some really bad pictures since the flash just washes out all the color, but maybe it's the T4 - I think this photo turned out great using the flash.

Ikuko, Oakland, CA. I love this photo - it's just an explosion of color thanks to the orange poppies and the touches of blue sky and greenery. This is the T4 at its best and obviously, I didn't need to do much except for pressing a button.

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Justin, Golden Gate Park, S.F., CA. More great examples of the T4 in action in daylight. Super sharp, great color saturation. And Justin's looking like the big boss man he is, running sh*t.

Oliver and Colleen, Jahva House, Oakland, CA. I normally don't like including too many photos that have me in them, but I chose to include this one because I really loved how warm and golden the color scheme is in the picture.

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Omega Music, Dayton, OH. As a DJ and record collector, I take photos of record stores all the time but most of them are boring, boring pictures. I didn't take this photo - probably my friend Justin did - but I just like how it captures the sense of space inside the store - the claustrophobic quality of it all.

Wyoming. Taken from the train, this was probably taken at the same time as a similar Polaroid on my other page. For me, it's all about how the son is just this blinding white flare in the corner and the purple tinge that settles on the rest of the print.

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Carroll Gardens, NY. It's all about the t-shirt. Cheesy I know, but I was tickled by it at the time.

Northern Ohio. Another Photoshop edit, I brightened this up a bit from the original. What's interesting is that the contrast adjustment basically erased the sky, turning it a blank white. This picture can't do proper justice to the actual scene. Those tracks seemed like they endlessly ran off into the countryside.

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Ikuko & Gordon, Berkeley, CA. I can't say which picture I like better compositionally, though having Ikuko and Gordon laughing in this print is a nice bonus. But I like each photo for its use of space in different ways.

Ikuko & Gordon, Berkeley, CA. This shots and the one that follows shows how two shots can take on very different feels depending on whether you shoot horizontally or vertically.

SPECS:
B/W Film (Kodak C-41, 400)
Color Film (Kodak Versatility, 400)
B/W shots processed at Photoworks, S.F. and Cantoo, Berkeley
Color shots processed at 1 hr. labs
Scanned with an Espon 2450