This first group of shots was taken during the drive down. We left South Carolina at 4am, but I couldn’t start shooting until dawn just started to break around 6:30am. Even then, I loaded the Fuji FP-100c which is rated at 100 iso so I was using very long shutter speeds. The first shot was a handheld 2-second exposure in a moving vehicle. I like the dreamy quality so much that I started playing around with ND filters and even longer exposures. The next two shots were 8-second exposures. I LOVE the blues in these pictures, although all of my Fuji film darkened up by about one stop. The second shot had a lot more detail when it was first pulled. The final shot is the Atlanta skyline as we were driving past at 70mph. If you look up close at this print it has a very painterly feel… unlike any digital image I’ve seen, either on screen or printed.
What are these photos about?
We ended up following a similar route as last year’s trip. First up were Bay St. Louis backroads. I really love the first shot of Andrew, but I wish it hadn’t darkened up so much. Same goes for the second shot of him eating a snowball on the tracks. The Polaroid 195 is a beautiful camera to shoot wide open. However, to do it in bright sun required juggling two different 3-stop ND filters. There was too much math involved to shoot on the fly! Ian’s shot turned out much brighter as he was standing with the sun on him — I loved the texture in the road. And of course he didn’t put down his Fuji X100S the whole trip… seriously he has it in nearly every shot below!
Playing around with off camera flash that evening — unfortunately we missed focus on Andrew’s aunt in the 2nd shot. These were actually taken with a new (to me) Polaroid 180 I just got, not my regular 195. The difference between the two is slim. The f3.8 lens on the 195 is 1/3rd of a stop faster than the f4.5 on the 180 — however, in terms of exposure and DOF they are hard to tell apart in actual photos. The 180 has a nicer Zeiss single window viewfinder while you normally have to compose in one window on the 195 and focus in another. Slow and no thanks. That is an easy fix, though, and I swapped my 2-window finder on my 195 with a single window Zeiss finder when I first got the camera. Now it’s equally quick on the draw. They are both extremely fun to shoot with and I think anyone would be happy with either — not to mention that the 180 is about $300-400 cheaper.
Sadly, I had 5 packs of Fuji FP-100c color film shipped down to MS that were lost in transit. Luckily I had a bunch of FP-3000b with me. After they discontinued it last year I loaded up with 90 boxes and it’s currently being stored in a small refrigerator. I also stored some packs at room temperature and others in my chest freezer for comparison purposes. I am hoping the chest freezer will be a viable long term storage for the Fuji film. I shudder to think about the day that Fuji kills the FP-100c, but if the chest freezer will store it without damaging it I’ll be filling it up the day they announce! Gah, I don’t even want to think such thoughts…
These first shots were from a pack stored at room temp for a few months. Anyway, I was kind of dreading shooting this 3000 iso film after last years bellows leak. Fortunately, the bellows held up this time, with only some burning at the extreme edges of the frame. There were beautiful rays of morning sun coming through the clouds and this pair of photos illustrates the difficulty in properly exposing this high speed film with 6-stops of ND filters.
A couple quick portraits taken in Andrew’s in-law’s dining room. The first shot is of me (taken by Ian) and then one of him taken by me.
On our way into New Orleans, we stopped near Slidell for some drive-thru daiquiris. Yum. The first shot is of our ride parked at the window while picking from the many flavors. Then we continued on HWY 90 through the swamps — looking for gators of course. We didn’t find any on the way in to town. The last shot of Ian was taken on the same boardwalk as my water moccasin shot from last year. Love the leading lines.
Most of the roads we were driving on looked like sets from HBO’s new show, True Detective. Amazingly, almost 9 years on now and Katrina’s impact still dominates the scenery. These shots were of an elevated house that was completely destroyed. It appears that all the owner’s belongings were stacked back up on the platform and then abandoned some time later. This surreal place also hosted a busted out plane lacking wings and other debris littering the lot. It looked like Mad Max — right in the middle of a small town on the bayou. Crazy. These pictures were taken with a pack of film that had been stored in the refrigerator, although I don’t think any of the packs were any easier to expose than others. Meaning, they were all tough to expose in full sunlight.
We actually spent very little time in New Orleans proper this year. The first shot was of some street musicians hanging out towards the end of Bourbon St. After a drive down Magazine Street to hit up Dirty Coast t-shirts, we ran into a raptor rescue demonstration outside the Whole Foods. Very cool! The last shot is of our waitress at Frankie & Johnny’s — at the last minute I think she got shy and pulled in one of her colleagues :-) After F&J’s we stopped at the Ogden and CAC across the street for some culture.
Just playing around shooting out the window. The first shot was taken on I-10 while heading over Lake Pontchartrain — somewhere around here. The second picture was taken back on 90 driving on the coast in MS. That is a kit surfer in the lower right of the frame.
When we got back to Bay St. Louis that night, we went into town to eat at the Blind Tiger. The first shot is of our crew walking Saturday Night Fever-style the mile or so into town. I was walking backwards as I shot this one so I guess I should be happy to have gotten it. When we got to the bar it was packed and Don and Mary (pictured in the back of the 2nd photo) let us join them at their table. I was stoked to find out that the bar had bushwackers — a drink I haven’t had for years since traveling in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, these came out of a dispenser co-branded by Kahlua and Malibu and they were made with ice cream. They tasted great, but I could only have one as the damn thing was basically a milkshake. The version I had in the Caribbean was a blended drink with only liquor and ice. I could (and did) drink those all day :-) Anyway, it was a fun night made all the more interesting by the fight in the bathroom. Strange but true, two idiots went into the bathroom, locked the door, and then got into a fight. It was all very dramatic — first the girlfriends were beating on the door screaming for someone to break it up. Then someone busted down the door, then the cops arrived, blah, blah, blah. This last picture doesn’t capture the excitement, but at least I got the cop on his way out. Seriously though, bathroom fights?
These last few were taken on our drive back to South Carolina. For the first shot I used the close-focus adapter — which allows for a very limited range of shooting between 9” and 15”. There is also a portrait adapter that focuses between 15” and 42”. I’m usually a portrait shooter so these options seem nice on paper, but in practice they are quite cumbersome. It would probably be easier to have two (or even three) cameras with you configured for different shots. Ian took the second photo out the back window of the van we were driving in. The last shot was taken in Atlanta as we started seeing signs for the Upstate.
I was a little worried about being stuck with only the 3000 iso B&W film for all that daylight shooting, but I was pleasantly surprised in the end. All and all it was another great trip… I can’t wait until the next one!
© 2026 INSTANTgratis
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
.jpeg?auto=webp)
/1x.jpeg?auto=webp)