Who Even Goes To Carson City, NV?
Outside my hotel room in Carson City, Nevada, a back-and-forth of rain and snow batters my window while sheets of fog roll in from the foothills of the eastern Sierra Nevada. Officially, I’m here for paleontological monitoring work—a side job I pick up a few times a year for extra cash. On a good day, it consists of locating, excavating, and preserving fossils that share real estate with various construction projects.
On a normal day, though (and most of them are normal), I find myself standing in the high desert, quietly debating whether I would prefer to uncover fossils—excavating and preserving such treasured pieces of Earth’s history—or whether it would be better if the construction crews never encountered any fossils at all. A fun little internal dialogue to help pass the time while the crews march on and my hands grow cold.
Snow Day, shot with my shitty Samsung SG21
Today is neither a good, nor a normal day. It’s more akin to a snow day I would look forward to in my youth. I drove out here yesterday to beat the storm over Donner Pass. Often, the logistics of getting from Chico, Ca to anywhere in Nevada during the winter months can be a nightmare, this time is no different. Today, the crews are not even in a Paleo sensitive site (thus the “snow day” analogy), so I took the opportunity to explore Carson City.
I brought with me the Nikon F3 and a Nikon Series E 28mm F2.8, with some rolls of Ilford HP5+. It’s a good opportunity for me to play around with this film in environments that I’ve never really shot in before. HP5+ is typically known as a good general use black and white film. Its ‘latitude’ and versatility allow for it to be pushed several stops (i.e. shooting it at 800 ISO or 1600 ISO and then “pushing” it in development).
The first roll was shot at box speed (400 ISO) and was a mixture of shots from the drive, my hotel room, old downtown Carson City in a heavy snow, and then some shots from the Nevada State Museum. After the museum I loaded another roll – this time with the intention of pushing it to 800. Unfortunately, shortly after loading up, the chunky soft white snowflakes turned to rain, and my wish to walk around getting lovely high contrast snowy pictures of old town Carson City was spoiled. The slushy snow, wet conditions, and dense ribbons of fog I feared would give me flat, uninteresting exposures, so I retreated to my hotel with some coffee and food and started writing. A few shots here and there out the window, but my foray into pushing HP5 in a lovely snowscape will have to wait for another time.
View from outside my hotel, shot with my shitty Samsung SG21
I’m sure I’ll post some photos from these rolls in the near future, as well as a couple rolls I just sent off for development – the contents of which I don’t remember (whoops). In the meantime, My Mamiya Press 23 Standard should be arriving at my house in Chico tomorrow. I’m excited to get home to play around with that. Some fun photoshoot ideas involve a ‘noir’ inspired shoot (lots of contrast, punchy highlights, probably on Ilford HP5+), and a vintage themed shoot with some pink/orange/yellow themes using a roll of Portra 400. I dunno. We’ll see.
Either way, I’ll keep ya updated.
Sean
