Hotel Lights at Mercury Lounge 09.20.15

It's me! Your favorite absentee blogger! My apologies on the four months of silence. A lot has been going on: two festivals, website redesign, a concert photography exhibit, weddings, general mayhem. You know how it is. What better way to welcome you back to the blog than with my newest photos? It's a small set as this wasn't an official shoot, but when Hotel Lights has a show, I kinda have to bring along a camera. (In this case, it was only the EOS M with the 85mm lens, so there isn't a whole lot of variety.)

Hotel Lights did a couple opening act sets in New York this month in preparation for their 2016 album release. The 40 minute set consisted of Darren Jessee on acoustic guitar and Alan Weatherhead on keyboards and electric guitar. They opened with a few new songs, which sounded great. There was a mention of Kodachrome in one of them and anytime anyone talks about nonexistent film, I get excited. (See the previous blog post with some film shots of Ektachrome.) Older songs were dispersed throughout the set. Going from memory: Blue Always Finds Me, Stumbling Home Winter Blues, You Come and I Go and Sky High. It was wonderful to hear Jessee's rendition of Sky High, which was released on Ben Folds Five's last album and sung by Folds.

The band looked relaxed and comfortable on stage; smiling and waving to those they recognized. After the set, I spoke to Darren briefly. His excitement for the upcoming album is apparent; he was all smiles as he spoke about the process. They also plan on doing a tour once the album is released next year.

There's something really special about watching a band grow and evolve over the years. Ben Folds Five was one of my favorite bands of my late teens. I saw them perform a few times before they went their separate ways. I've seen Darren perform solo, as Hotel Lights, back with Ben Folds Five and then as a drummer for Sharon Van Etten. I've also been really fortunate enough to photograph a lot of those shows, first for myself, but later on as a writer and photographer for Surviving the Golden Age. I'm really looking forward to the new album and hopefully, reviewing their next tour on StGA.

Cross Processed Film

From Wikipedia: Cross processing (sometimes abbreviated Xpro) is the deliberate processing of photographic film in a chemical solution intended for a different type of film. Color cross processed photographs are often characterized by unnatural colors and high contrast. The results of cross processing differ from case to case, as the results are determined by many factors such as the make and type of the film used, the amount of light exposed onto the film and the chemical used to develop the film.

In the case of these three rolls of film, I used slide film and had it processed in C-41 chemicals. I used different films and different cameras and got some pretty fun results. The Agfa crossbird film has been created for Xpro and has an unmistakable green tint to it; which if you've read this blog before know I adore green. It really popped in some of the macro flower shots and the beach sunset is out of this world. I also really dug the graveyard shots.

The Kodak Ektachrome Tungsten film was a purchase of mine back in the days when I worked at Milford Camera Shop. I originally purchased it to take slide shots of paintings in art galleries. The film is balanced for indoor lighting without a flash, so when you use it outdoors, it casted blue. Plus it was cross processed, so it went even farther in the color shift. For a film that's easily 12 years old and has not been kept in the fridge, I was shocked that anything came out at all! I did rate the film a stop slower than what it really was to make up for the expired film. I was really happy that I ventured down to Smiles Entertainment, aka Milford Amusement Center, because it's since been torn down. There was definitely some anxiety not knowing if the shots would come out on such an old film. I like the fact that I took photos of a place that doesn't exist anymore on a film that's long been discontinued.

Finally, I rushed through a roll on my medium format camera because I wanted to see how it would size up. I need to shoot more film on this camera! The results are so tack sharp! I managed to get both a blue tint and a green tint on this film. When I overexposed it, it leaned more green. Anyway, enough talking, enjoy the photos!

Agfa Crossbird 35mm Film

Kodak Ektachrome Tungsten 35mm Film

Fuji Provia 100, Medium Format Film

All film was developed and scanned by my buddies at Old School Photo Lab. Hit them up for all your film needs!