Photography Part 1: Green Lakes State Park
Green Lakes State Park is a beautiful spot located in Fayetteville NY. It's home to two incredible lakes formed by melt water from ancient glaciers. Due to the surrounding hillsides the light from the sun hits the lakes at such an angle to make the water appear a translucent green color, which is what gives the park its name.
The water is also astoundingly deep and clear: one can see straight to the bottom around some areas on the shoreline before some serious sheer drop-offs toward the middle of the lake. This trip started with my college buddy Dan telling me he was coming up to New York to visit family and, since he had just gotten a new camera himself, I figured this would be a great opportunity to take a boat load of pictures as we walked around the park.
I believe these two rolls were shot on Kodak Ultra 400, and I used my analogue light meter for nearly every shot. In the installments following this one, I started keeping track of exactly what film I shot, so I'll have better records to share on that front in the coming months. You can also see in some of these pictures (like the one below featuring Dan) that I still have not found the source of my light leak, although changing the seals did help.
Quick note on the light meter: I used it so heavily here because I thought the one built in to my camera was broken. As it turns out, the light meter works fine, but I need to hold the lens aperture closed to actually get an accurate reading, which is something I was not doing. Some lessons need to be learned the hard way, and this was one.
I'm very happy with the performance of the film here, as I think it rendered the brilliantly vivid blues and greens in stunning fashion. This is something I hear Fuji's film lines, especially Provia 400H, excel at, so I'll be returning there this summer to take some more shots on Fuji to see how they compare with the Kodak film.
These are by far the best rolls of film I had shot so far, and I think this really shows that you can get really beautiful results just based on good composition and exposure. You don't need to be shooting Kodak Porta from a Leica camera with Zeiss lenses to get results with vivid colors and the natural grain that makes film photography attractive.
In fact, this has been an exceedingly cheap hobby for me so far, with my only expenses being film, developing, and some lenses from eBay. The film I buy (stocks like Kodak Gold or Ultra, Fuji 200, and the like) only costs about $8-10 a roll, and developing cost totals about $17. I recently got a membership to a local DIY photo lab so my developing cost will drop to $10 per roll which means I can shoot, develop, and share a roll of film for about the same cost as going to a movie or a decent diner. I'd say that's not bad for an afternoon out.
I can continue to drive costs down by developing my own film as well, but that's a skill I have not picked up yet. The photo lab does have a dark room though, so that's something I hope to pick up soon. I bought a few cheap rolls of black and white film that I'll fill up with some "throwaway" shots that I won't miss if I end up binning the roll somehow during the development process.
Next up will be pictures from the 2021 Wings Over Dallas air show once they’re finished being developed and I can scan them. I have three rolls of color film and two black and white, so I will probably be making separate posts for each of those. I’ve also added a portfolio page here on the website here where you can view my favorite shots from all of my film all in one place.