The sky was clear and the light was great by the time I got downtown on our national holiday... I had two types of expired film to use, and so visited downtown to continue my architectural details series in Lomochrome purple, and the botanical garden for expired color slide film.
The fact that it is expired makes for low expectations and the opportunity for the pleasant surprise of my expectations being exceeded.
I shot the slide film with a portrait lens, and realized that my golden era of plant photography involved the special recipe of a single lens reflex camera, a fast (f1.4) lens, and various cheap close-up lenses which provided soft backgrounds of high quality. I've been trying to get the same results with other equipment (including my newest digital camera), and hope to be pleased with yesterday's experiment, but must admit that my old approach gave me unusually good results... I understand how special they were more now that I struggle to achieve similar looks. (I can't easily go back: work I had done on the camera created new problems...)
So let me say: I appreciate phone photos very much: they give me very satisfying results.
