Went to mid-Kansas several weeks ago for a Family Reunion and a visit to the Flint Hills.  Instead of shooting standard film I shot it with some strange birds:  Haman Phoenix 200 and Ilfocolor 400 Vintage Tone.  Both give real interesting ( re: unusable ) results.  They’re hard to work with.  Here’s what I got. [H=Harman and I= Ilfocolor]

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All very interesting but had I to do it over I would have shot some “regular” Kodak film 

I’ve included the original “Heart Shaped Box” to compare to.  Amazing what the Jazz Folks can do.  The song is now, in my opinion , worth listening to.

The Flint Hills is a unique tallgrass prairie ecosystem found in central North America centered on Kansas and northern Oklahoma (where they are known as the Osage Hills). It is a tallgrass prairie, a type of temperate grassland, marked by few trees but abundant forbs and grasses that can grow up to 10 feet tall. These same plants have roots that grow up to 15 feet deep, tapping into limited groundwater. Naturally occurring prairie fires and cycles of drought meant only the hardiest plants and animals evolved to survive in the Flint Hills.

Unlike other tallgrass prairies in North America that contain deep soils, most of the Flint Hills has very shallow soil. An ancient inland seaway that covered central North America starting 290 million years ago deposited alternating layers of hard limestone and softer shale rocks. The actions of erosion in recent geologic history have created the jagged ‘step-pyramid’ look unique to the slopes of the Flint Hills. These surface layers of limestone and chert also stopped the settlers plow and preserved the integrity of the soil. 

The first humans who set eyes on the Flint Hills encountered a wetter and cooler place than today. Humans arrived at least 13,000 years ago to find abundant hunting grounds with ice age mammals. As the local climate warmed and dried, later cultures adopted farming techniques to raise crops like corn and beans in the rich river bottomlands.

At one point, 150 million acres of tallgrass prairie stretched from Texas to Canada. The majority transformed into the agricultural heartland of America through 200 years of settlement and development. American settlers carved up the tallgrass of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and the Dakotas. Their harvests fed a growing nation and world. But, the Flint Hills would follow a different path.

When U.S. Army Captain Zebulon Pike passed through this area in 1806, he wrote in his journal, “passed very ruf [sic] Flint Hills,” putting a name to this unique region. When Euro-American settlers arrived in the 1850s, they struggled to farm the land because of the overabundance of rock in the soil. Observing the healthy bison on the land, they began to herd cattle, which like the bison, fattened quite easily on the rich prairie grasses. With cattle driven up from Texas and the introduction of barbed wire, ranching boomed into a huge business, making it a staple in the Flint Hills to this very day.

Today, only 4% of the original tallgrass prairie ecosystem survives, the largest piece being in the Flint Hills. Threats remain to this ecosystem. Introduced plants and animals compete with native ones. Land owners continue to plow up untouched soil. Fragmentation of land threatens species like prairie chickens that require large scale intact prairies.

It’s for any and all Idiots - 24 hours of Lemons

A gathering of Ottoson’s took place in Hillsboro, Kansas this last week.  These are a few snaps from that experience

Also paid a visit to the Marion Records which is the county newspaper that was illegally raided about two years ago.  A real tragedy - the owner was a 90 year old that died the day after the raid from the stress.  A reveal of small town abuse of power, bullying.

From the reunion we headed north to the Flint Hills - more on that later

Just a few pics from my last trip to the plains.  

Today is my 70th birthday - really having a hard time wrapping my head around this.  My body is well aware of my age with recent knee pain, gout, PT for back pain.  Saturday there will be bunches of people here to help me celebrate so I have that going for me.  Prefer to think of me as a 5 year old

Garden Gnome of a different type

Here’s a shot I took today at the Wheat Ridge Carnation Festival Parade on 28th Street.   Give me a story combining all the elements - street sweeper, little girl and a  Nun

In the vibrant tapestry of Los Angeles’s music scene, LA LOM stands out for its ability to seamlessly weave together the diverse genres and cultures of the city into its music. Short for The Los Angeles League of Musicians, LA LOM is composed of LA natives Zac Sokolow (Guitar), Jake Faulkner (Bass), and Nicholas Baker (Drums/Percussion).

The roots of LA LOM reach back to 2019, when the band was assembled to play five nights a week in the lobby of the historic Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. Initially tasked with providing background music for hotel patrons, tourists, and passersby off the street, LA LOM soon began experimenting with a genre-transcending repertoire that reflects the diverse musical diaspora of Angelenos.

LA LOM started out reimagining instrumental renditions of the soulful ballads from the 1950s and ’60s that they grew up listening to on LA’s oldies station, K-EARTH 101, evoking the laid-back aesthetic that defines the region, and drawing inspiration from luminaries like Smokey Robinson, Aaron Neville, and Brenda and the Tabulations.

Their sonic palette expanded to encompass the romantic allure of classic Mexican Boleros and the Cumbia Sonidera woven into the very fabric of the city’s soundscape, resonating through the streets from car stereos, backyard parties, and lively dance halls. LA LOM carved out a sound that blends all of these elements with the guitar-driven twang of Peruvian Chicha and Bakersfield Country.

Zac Sokolow’s musical lineage spans generations. He began his creative journey performing alongside his father, a respected figure in LA’s bluegrass community, whose family relocated from Buenos Aires to LA in the 1930s. Jake Faulkner comes from a family of Venice artists and met Zac at age 16. Zac and Jake honed their craft through years of collaboration in various bands within Southern California’s vibrant Rockabilly scene before eventually joining to form LA LOM. Nicholas Baker was steeped in Latin music from childhood by his grandmother, who hailed from a musical family in Durango, Mexico, and gained fame as a DJ on a Spanish-language radio station in Tucson, Arizona. He studied Latin percussion with renowned Nuyorican bassist and percussionist Roberto Miranda.

LA LOM have quickly ascended to playing to thousands of people and have captured the attention of Beck, Vampire Weekend and Zane Lowe.  

Am thinking of taking the Bronica ETRS ( 645 ) on the trip to Hillsboro, Kansas.  I hadn’t used it in awhile so I decided to shoot a roll of Tri X.  Glad I did as the focus on many the shots were off.  In looking at things I realized that the aftermarket focusing screen was not sitting correctly in its holder.  I put back the OEM screen and everything was sorted out.  Here are a few of the backyard scenes.

One of my favorite albums.  Suggest you look at the other albums that Charlie Haden has done .  These two are both from Missouri but from different types of Missouri.

Having no real good place to talk about film experimentation I thought I would throw it up here.  My Substack audience is a general audience and would have no interest in this level of geekery.  This blog has NO audience so perfect.

What I bring you is expired Ilford FP4 type 517 Cine film.  Respolled from larger cine rolls.  The description made it sound like the 2nd coming of the film Jesus and at only 3 English Pounds why not.  

My first time out was not so gracious.  I shot this on my trusty point and shoot Contax T2, at ISO 100.  Developed in HC110 B for 14.5 minutes.  Negs were darker than normal - ? over exposed or over developed?  Hard for me to know.

I have 9 rolls left so I can continue to experiment - may try shooting it at ISO 200 with same time in the HC110B

Last week we went to Buffalo, WY for the annual Longmire Days =- celebrating the books and Netflix series about sheriff Walt Longmire.  The Town in the book is Durant, WY in Absaroka County.  Craig Johnson is the author of over 20 books.

Sorry no images of actors or author as I didn’t go to any of the break out sessions - too busy shooting landscapes and other things

There’s always something new and interesting and C and C.  

I can’t even pronounce the name of the company but this film is called GP3 and it comes in 220 format.  You can’t find 220 film anymore save this outlet.  220 is nothing more than 120 film ( medium format) that has twice the number of exposures.  I shoot a 645 format so instead of 15 exposures I get 30.  This is very handy.  I can shoot 220 in both of my 645 cameras.  Developing this Chinese film was a little tricky and at least 10 exposures were ruined by a light leak as I tried to figure out how to get it on the Patterson reels.

On a recent post I spoke about these women who do prairie murals  Some Gals and a Mural and I reached out to them to find out if they did this one in Flagler, Colorado - Yep they did - I’ve admired this work every time I go into Flagler or pass it on I 70 and wanted to highlight it.  Job well done.

An amazing photo book by Tim Richmond, a British Photographer who can’t get enough of the real American West

Tim Richmond’s American West is a desolate place filled with cowboys (or men who look like cowboys), and the few women are also at least a little rough around the edges. There are mostly empty roads and what look like desolate towns, with whatever humans being present feeling like tumbleweeds being blown about. It is a place filled with characters and locations that manage to be specific and completely generic at the same time, with a rough, somewhat hurt, tenderness underneath.  -= Amazon Review

Through an online news feed I found Two ladies doing Rural Murals and wanted to give them some attention here on my blog.

Quite talented and it adds much needed color to the prairie.  Pay a visit to their web site .

Roadside Memorial

These shots were all on film - specifically Kodak ECN-2 which is 35 mm Movie Film still being produced for studios.  Once the Remjet is removed it can be processed in either ECN-2 chemicals or C41.  My scanning YouTube reviews seems to show not much of a difference between the results although using Cinestill 2bath kit makes using C41 very appealing.  These were not processed by me but rather Tree House Labs who has been very good to work with