“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
Confucious, 551 BCE
The light was beautiful. The morning was quiet. And, I was at Venice Beach.
Quiet?
Yeah, I know, Venice Beach is anything but quiet. Normally, there are hucksters, shucksters, & tourist everywhere. But, on this particular day, at that particular time, the place was serene. So, I decided to keep it simple and create clean, minimalistic compositions. It just so happens that I was shooting film which was perfect since the contemplative pace would perfectly match the mood of the day.
Usually Tri-X is my go to B&W film, but on this day, I wanted to max out the grain with another favorite – Tmax P3200. Admittedly, P3200 doesn’t have the most prominent grain for its speed, but it balances grain size and detail in a way that I really like. That is, the emulsion doesn’t seem to blur the details as much as much as other films pushed to ISO 3200. For a fast film, it’s pretty…clean (Yup, that’s the word for the day)
My goal for this shoot was to keep things uncomplicated. I think an uncrowded beachfront is perfect when trying to maximize negative space in photos. Blue skies, sparse clouds, and simple compositions just work for me. Kinda’ makes creating those clean images a bit more achievable. I believe I met my goal, but, as usual you be the judge. If you’d like… let me know your thoughts. Feel free to leave a message in the comments section below. As always, I hope you enjoy viewing the images as much as I enjoyed making them.
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–Reggie–
Equipment Used
- Leica M2
- Leica 35 Summilux, FLE f1.4
- Voightlander 28 Ultron f2
Film Processing
- Film: Kodak Tmax P3200
- Processed in Kodak Tmax Developer
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