Saturday the 9th found me in downtown McKinney, TX with the Dallas Photo Walk group. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was my third photowalk in historic downtown McKinney.
On the first, in 2012 with the Dallas Photo Walk MeetUp Group (a different group), I shot some Fuji Pro 400H in the Ricoh 35ZF alongside the D7000. I’m pretty sure that was my first photowalk with film, and I’m pretty sure I never shared pictures from that roll.* Shame, I think.
The second was a fun Scavenger Hunt with the North Texas Photography Explorers Meetup Group in 2013, and all digital. I didn’t much participate in the group voting, and don’t think I won any awards for my attempts to combine multiple items into each photo. Oh well.
Somehow, in the intervening years, I forgot all about those walks, and it was only late in the day, when I came across that strange, fenced-off, main street play yard thing at the back of CASA of Collin County that I remembered.
This, though, time was all film: I finished off the last roll of 35mm FP4 and a roll of Fomapan Profi Line 200, then started rolls of Lomo F²400 and Adox Color Implosion, and had a pretty good time.
Our hosts, as usual, were Mr. Holga and Mark Snaps, and I managed decent shots of both of them at various points, along with the most of the rest of the group. I’m still the same James I’ve always been: not particularly chatty, and a really awful conversationalist; a bit nervous around crowds and feeling somewhat out of place for no good reason. Now that I’m nearing my 40s, maybe I can find a way to work on my confidence, or whatever it is. But I had a good enough time anyway.
We met out front of Goodies Texas (and kinda stayed together, more or less, and walked West on Louisiana for a bit towards the fountain (it was off). I was shooting the FM3a and 35mm f/2 D and the Agfa Optima Sensor 535, and during that time, I managed to finish off the FP4+ in the FM3a, and loaded up a roll of Adox Color Implosion.
Shooting black & white alongside color film makes for some interesting comparisons.
We took Church down to Virginia, paused for a bit. The light was starting to get dramatic, and there were some great shadows on the west sides of some of the buildings. Mr. Holga ignored the fire escape that had everyone else enthralled, and just went for it (whatever it was).
Others stood by and watched, not seeing anything really worth shooting, I guess.
And it was about this time I finished up the roll of Fomapan Profi Line Creative 200 (what a name!) in the Agfa 535, so I swapped in some Lomography F²/400. To be honest, I’m not a big fan of that film. I just haven’t figured out how to shoot it or what to do to get the colors looking good in post. I’ve got 6 rolls in the freezer and might end up selling them. I think I’ll get more enjoyment from the cash (and other rolls in the freezer) than I would messing about with it even more.
We entered the square from the north west corner, and stopped to shoot the tree, all decorated and everything. The Adox did a nice job, I think, but the F²/400 really let me down here. It’s just too contrasty and saturated for my taste.
The tree had a couple of strange decorations, or maybe graffiti? I don’t know. Something…
We took our time around the square, then headed down Louisiana. Mr. Holga looked dashing, though there was no snow, nor horse, for his sleigh.
After that, we started cutting around alleyways to look for graffiti and whatnot. Mrs. Snaps owns a yoga studio down there, so she and Mr. Snaps knew all the hot spots.
We cut down Johnson to Cloyd, where we found this great old warehouse-looking building.
We all lined up for a group portrait. Somewhere, there’s a digital one and a Polaroid/Fuji FP-100c one floating about somewhere, but I can’t find it just now.
As usual, I shot the person shooting us…
We went for dinner at the Mellow Mushroom: I had the Avocado Hoagie, and it was tasty enough. I wish I was better at chit-chatting with people, but I’m not. At one point, I ended a conversation with Mr. Holga by saying, “…and I’m bad at making conversation.”
He chuckled. So that was my third McKinney walk. To be honest, it was probably a better time even than the previous two. I’m older now, and a tiny bit more confident. I hope to grow up even more some day, but I need more practice at it. I overheard mention of another photowalk group run by Mr. and Mrs. Snaps, and if I can figure out how to join in on that, I probably should. I like the people quite a bit, really.
I should probably go back and retry the color conversion on the F²400, and try to at least match the colors on the Color Implosion, and I really need to upgrade to a laptop with a matte screen one day. I can’t calibrate this 2012 MacBook Pro screen for anything… Sheesh.
*Wait… no. I shared some when I was building the Scan-O-Matic, and probably another time too.
