Posts from the ‘Tuesdays With Nate’ Category

Most of you regulars know that I’ve taken to collecting vintage cameras. A big part of that is, actually let’s just attribute all of it to, my dad. We were visiting my family in St. Augustine a while back, and like normal my family busted out all sorts of embarrassing pictures of me. One of those pictures happened to have great lighting and a nice background blur, so naturally I asked, “What was this taken with?” To which my dad, after rummaging around in his closet for a minute, said, “This” and handed me a shoebox with an Olympus OM-1 inside. A few months later, when my dad asked what I wanted for Christmas, I told him I wanted a medium format camera. So for Christmas I got a Yashica D twin lens, and a month later for my birthday he got me an Argus C-44 Rangefinder and an Exacta G 35mm (1950s from Dresden Germany). On our last trip home for my nephews birthday, there was another box of goodies waiting for me: several Brownie box cameras and a fairly new Polaroid SX-70. That on top of Becka’s newest aquisition, her vintage Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera, and we’ve got quite a collection going now.

I shot some frames while Ian and I were brewing beer and last week we took the Yashica and Olympus out to DeLeon Springs in DeLand and Becka did an amazing job on her first try using a manual film camera.

Brewing Beer | Fujicolor Pro 160 on the Yashica D by me:

DeLeon Springs | Fujicolor Pro 160 on the Yashica D by Becka:

These images have not been retouched at all. We just scanned them into the computer from the prints we got from the lab and sized them for the blog. Becka is kind of in love with the natural tones of the color film and refuses to mess with them. It has a quality you just can’t replicate in photoshop. But as great as all the cameras are, the real joy for me has been spending time with my family, finding something new to bond over, and sharing in the excitement with each other. Using the cameras isn’t too bad either. I know Becka has been feeling a bit guilty that we don’t take many personal photos of our life, and she’s enjoying shooting more day to day with these new (old) toys. Hopefully we’ll build up a nice collection of images for our future children and grandchildren to look through and mock us about. I wish it hadn’t taken so long for me to realize how valuable my family can be, and how valuable they are to me, but I’ve definitely started taking advantage of every opportunity to spend time with them. Was there something that happened with you that made you really start to appreciate your family?

Also, we have a bit of a problem now. We’ve got two boxes worth of cameras and camera bits and no where to put them. Becka is imagining a guest room makeover with one of those super long floating shelves from ikea to show off all these bad boys. Do you have any good display ideas? They’re just too sexy to keep boxed up.

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PS. We’re currently updating our portfolio website so if you’ve noticed anything quirky happening on the blog, website, or anything like that, don’t worry. We’re just getting stuff moved around and will be launching the made-over site soon.

Saturday was a great day.  Instead of spending the day working on our new studio space, like we probably should have, I spent the day brewing beer with one of my good friends and past grooms, Ian.  Brewing beer is a lot harder than one would think.  Doing it right, making really GOOD BEER, requires a combination of art and science, precision and understanding of the entire process, selecting the right ingredients and using/building the right tools.  For example, if the water you put in the grain is lower than 150 degrees, you won’t get enough sugar out of it, if it’s higher than 170 degrees, it will release bitter tannins that can ruin your flavor.  We spent the day boiling, pouring, measuring, heating, cooling, and hopping a traditional brown ale.  I’ll let you know how it tastes in a few weeks.

We used 3 kinds of hops, added with about 45, 30, and 5 minutes before the beer was finished boiling

One of the hardest parts, it turns out, is cooling the beer from about 215 degrees to below 80 as fast as possible (around 1/2 hour) so that bacteria that could harm the yeast doesn't have time to grow. 50 feet of copper tubing with ice water flowing through them will do the trick.

In the name of killing two birds with one stone, today’s post is not only very efficient, but also very personal.  One of the the best “take home” lessons from our recent week in Vegas was from Elizabeth Messina, who encouraged photographers to stay busy and push themselves creatively by taking on personal projects (bird 1).  When I was thinking of what kind of projects would inspire and push me, I could think of no better muse than my very own fiance’.  I thought for a long time about what I could show her through my lens, how I could tell her what I feel about her and convey what I hope she sees in me.  What I came up with, at least for my first project, was trust (bird 2).

Conveying a conceptual idea through pictures is easier said than done.  Step one was to define it, step two was to find it.  I sat for a while and thought about what trust meant to ME.

1) Trust doesn’t mean you don’t still worry, or at least use common sense

2) Trust is earned through time and trials, and even then it is only given after careful consideration

3) Real trust is consistent, but not perfect, because we are imperfect people

Hopefully the rest speaks for itself…

We trust in basic principles, like "if you water the grass, it will grow"

We trust that signs are there for a reason, and that there will be consequences if we ignore them. Some are easier to see than others.

We put up barriers to keep out those that we don't trust. Locks, passcodes, fences, sometimes just distance or silence.

We trust that what everyone else is doing may not be the best way, and that sometimes it's better to trust yourself.

We trust in things that have weathered the storm and survived, even if they aren't the prettiest, fastest, or coolest.

We believe that all roads lead back home, and trust that the people we love are still there waiting for us.

We trust our lives in the hands of others far too often.

We trust that the people we love will always be around forever, but deep down we know it's not true.

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