Artificial Light

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Monday 20 September 20201

Monday 20 September, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T3 | XF27mmF2.8 | 160 sec at f/8.0 | ISO 1600

While I enjoy fall weather for the colours and the early morning “mist” and quiet in the house as the Thermostat enters the “do nothing “ cycle, I’m no fan of winter, with its cold grey skies and snow. The days get shorter, which means getting up in the dark and starting the workday just as the sun rises and ending the workday long after sunset.


Monday 20 September, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T3 | XF27mmF2.8 | 160 sec at f/4.0 | ISO 640

I really must remove the super zoom from my wish list this year. Yesterday afternoon my wife and I walked along the Kingston and Princeton sections of the D&R Canal State Park. On the opposite bank of the canal, we came upon a blue heron, wings spread out with inner feathers on full displays, enjoying the warmth of the sun. The XF27mmF.8 lens fitted to my Fuji X-T3 could not bridge the gap.


Monday 20 September, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T3 | XF27mmF2.8 | 1170 sec at f/8.0 | ISO 320

I am inspired by the post title, Saturday Photowalk with Friends to organise a regular weekend local photo walk with my friends. I think I’ve explored enough of the area to recommend places to visit and when. I think it will help us all after over a year of being disconnected. I want this. I better get to the planning.

Tuesday 21 September 2021

I am excited about this week's Lens-Artists Challenge #166 – Artificial Light. When I first saw the prompt, I thought, "just photograph the Princeton or Hopewell shops in the late evening". But that just seemed too "boring". Inspired by Pattii's entry for challenge, I thought maybe I should try some long exposure night photography.

Washington Road Bridge
Washington Road Bridge, Princeton | Friday 15 September, 2017 | Nikon D5100 | 35 mm f/1.8 | 20.0 sec at f/6.3 | ISO 100

I dug through my catalogue for more inspiration. I plan on capturing some long exposure night photographs around Princeton and Hopewell. This could be fun.

Friday Night Football, Montgomery Highschool
Friday Night Football, Montgomery Highschool | Friday 14 September, 2018 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR @ 22.7 mm | 140 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 12800
Hotel Somerset, Somerville
Hotel Somerset, Somerville | Friday 28 September, 2018 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR @ 16 mm | 15.0 sec at f/16 | ISO 200
Lower Manhattan from J. Owen Grundy Park, Jersey City
Lower Manhattan from J. Owen Grundy Park, Jersey City | Saturday 28 July, 2018 | Canon EOS 5D Mark III | EF24-70mm f/4L IS USM @ 24 mm | 30.0 sec at f/13 | ISO 100
Lower Manhattan Cityscape from Harborside, Jersey City
Lower Manhattan Cityscape from Harborside, Jersey City | Saturday 28 July, 2018 | Canon EOS 5D Mark III | EF24-70mm f/4L IS USM @ 33 mm | 30.0 sec at f/22 | ISO 100

Wednesday 22 September 2021

“I welcome the news that PennEast is standing down from its attempt to seize state-owned land to build a destructive and unnecessary pipeline,” ~ U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski.

Friday 24 September 2021

I had breakfast at Aunt Chubby's this morning. I wanted to do something familiar to calm my nerves before the 5 hours of scheduled meetings with Amazon Web Services. Before COVID, I regularly had breakfast at Chubby's, either by myself or with Bhavna. The last time I dined inside at Aunt Chubby's was January 2020. I had two cappuccinos and a pork roll egg and cheese sandwich.

Aunt Chubby's
Aunt Chubby's | Friday 24 September, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T3 | XF27mmF2.8 | 160 sec at f/8.0 | ISO 500
Aunt Chubby's
Aunt Chubby's | Friday 24 September, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T3 | XF27mmF2.8 | 160 sec at f/2.8 | ISO 640
Aunt Chubby's
Aunt Chubby's | Friday 24 September, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T3 | XF27mmF2.8 | 160 sec at f/2.8 | ISO 640

I agree with Thom Hogan's opinion regarding Adobe's Creative Suite.

... let me talk about Creative Cloud for a moment. The move from a perpetual product to a subscription model was indeed jarring. But note what Jason writes in his article about software subscriptions and what they do for the company. I agree with him that it's mostly a stabilising force, and I think that Adobe should at this point be given credit for their success, both for themselves and for their customers. 

I went back and looked at what I was paying to regularly update Photoshop (or versions of the Creative Suite, or Lightroom, depending upon the time frame—I've been using Photoshop since version 1.0). Beginning with the formation of the Creative Suite, I was paying about US$190/year on average to keep my software updated (of which I used three programs in the Suite). And having to jump through hoops to do that, as their installers were notorious for wanting to see every previous version's CD and activation number when you tried to update. 

Today, I'm far better off. I'm paying an average of US$100/year to keep Photoshop/Lightroom updated (I'm aggressive about looking for annual discounts) and don't have to jump through hoops each time an update appears. While in some years, I get more features added and better performance enhancements, I've also been getting a regular feed of bug fixes and minor updates and OS support updates. I much prefer the current situation to the previous one with Creative Suite. I'm sure Adobe prefers it, too, as they get a regular, known stream of income from me and others on which to base their ongoing product development.

I also agree with his opinion regarding Skylum's Luminar.

I'm less confident about a number of other software companies, because they all show the signs of "scramble for on-going revenue." Spin-outs, spin-ins, template sales, book sales, pre-selling updates, and much more. And in so doing, that makes it more likely that the company looks out for itself first, and then stumbles because they forgot to look out for the customer. 

Skylum’s recent announcement of Luminar Neo sure looks like one of these scrambles. Why didn’t Luminar just get updated? Why did we get Luminar AI and now Luminar Neo? My guess is that it’s a revenue need driving these “all new” products that keep replacing each other. (Or do they replace each other? I can’t tell from Luminar’s totally messed up marketing messages, and I don’t have the time to order, test, and form an opinion about whether they do replace each other or not.)

I pre-bought Luminar AI when it was announced and now just a year later, Luminar AI is deprecated. Why?


What if Fujifilm were to add in full-frame sensor X Series camera to the line-up? Personally, I think that would be great (perhaps even in an X-H3 body). Given the way the marketplace is heading, it could prove to be a crucial move from a business point, although I guess that would mean a whole new range of lenses too…or would it?

I remember when people enjoyed making photographs rather than obsessing over gear. Isn't that what we celebrated about the X system cameras? Some of your points are spot on when it comes to whether the Fuji product is suitable for professional photography.

Concerning amateur photography, Thom Hogan wrote the following in Where Should You Focus Your Attention?:

If a current ILC camera doesn't produce good images up to about the maximum size a desktop inkjet printer can product (13x19" or so), then the problem isn't the camera.

Saturday 25 September 20201

Saturday 25 September, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T3 | XF27mmF2.8 | 1125 sec at f/8.0 | ISO 320
Brick Farm Tavern
Saturday 25 September, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T3 | XF27mmF2.8 | 1105 sec at f/8.0 | ISO 160

Sunday 26 September 2021

My response to Dan James query.

How do you read online? Which platforms and hardware work best for you?

I’ve been a Mac since November 2005, and I bought my first iPad in April 2010. So no surprise, I’m still using a Mac (27” iMac) and iPad (Pro).

I don’t use email to read newsletters or catch up with blogs. Email is for work-related messaging, personal correspondence, and notifications from banks, utilities, etc.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) was offered free to the world 22 years ago on March 15, 1999. I started using it a few months after that. RSS has been the primary method for keeping up with any source that supports it (mostly blogs).

I've quoted from this 2017 post, The Case for RSS by David Sparks, before, but I'll repeat:

For several years now, the trend among geeks has been to abandon the RSS format. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a way to queue up and serve content from the internet. The MacSparky RSS, for example, gives RSS applications a list of all the articles I posted here since you last checked in. It is a great way to read blogs and the backbone of podcast distribution. As social networks took off, a lot of my friends that were previously big RSS fans gave up on the technology and instead relied upon sources like Twitter and Facebook to get their news.

That was never me.

For RSS, I used Google Reader for many years, but when Google abandoned the product, I searched and found replacements.

I’ve tried Feedly, River 2, Fever, Reeder, and several others, but I’ve used Reeder exclusively for several years. Reeder is cross-platform, running on macOS, iPad OS and iOS. The app team have provided a continuous improvement over the years, and I think the app is feature complete. I originally paid a yearly fee to use a feed aggregation service, Feedbin. The Feedbin service also provided the ability to sync my reading status across my drives. However, Reeder just started leveraging iCloud sync.

I have struggled with managing the feeds that are firehoses. Over the years, I’ve performed multiple spring cleanings and reorganised sources. Feeds that update frequently, mainly very popular Apple, cyber security, and photography websites, are corralled under the “news” category. Then I’ve broken down the lower volume photography feeds into “bloggers”, then Fuji, and finally film. The Fuji feeds, and the film feeds are low volume, so keeping up is easy.

I’ve had a Gmail account since the beta launched in 2004. But several years ago, I decided that instead of using a free service, where I’m the product, I would happily pay to host my email. Gmail is where all the low-value email goes. I was a big fan of Google, but as I became increasingly concerned with privacy, I started a move away from their services.

This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home

I am not a fan of shoes, even when outside. I love the feeling of cool grass or beach sand under my feet. It's so delightful.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #161 – Feet and Shoes

I am not a fan of shoes, even when outside. I love the feeling of cool grass or beach sand under my feet. It's so delightful.

Remember this?

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none,
And this little piggy cried "wee wee wee" all the way home.

My mom would recite that nursery rhyme to me while wiggling my toes. And I did the same to my kids.

I remember the first time we put shoes on Shaan's feet. Shaan cried and tried in vain to get them off; "what are these horrible things covering my beautiful little piggies".

When I first moved to the USA, I was astonished by how many people wore shoes inside the home. I mean, the bottom of the shoe has walked all over "yucky" stuff outside, and you are now transferring all the yucky stuff inside your home. Ew! Feet can be washed. Shoes, not so much.

Growing up in the Caribbean, no one, no one wore shoes inside the house. It was pretty common to go barefoot even when walking down the street to a friends house to play. I, fortunately, married an Asian woman (Bhavna's from India), and like the rest of her family, we have a "shoes at the door" policy. In most Asian and Caribbean cultures it is expected that you take your shoes off when entering someone’s home.

Some Americans seem to think feet are ugly and should be hidden inside shoes. I believe this is because they likely have ugly feet with bunions and hammertoes that they got over the years from paradoxically wearing shoes. Just a year into my daily commute to Wall Street, I started to develop pain in my feet, and the large toe on my right foot developed a slight curve. This was most likely due to wearing dress shoes while briskly walking to the office. Sometimes I would remove my shoes under the desk to get some relief.

Due to my diabetes, Bhavna discourages my outside barefoot walks, and I certainly would not go hiking without proper protective footwear. My favourite pair of shoes are my beach flip-flops. I think they are a decent compromise.

My Fujifilm X-T2 is still out for repair, and the 35mm film camera isn't helpful for "quick turn around" photography, so I skimmed through my profile looking for photographs for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #161 – Feet and Shoes. I found a lot more images than I expected.

Wednesday 10 February, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | MD ROKKOR-X 50mm F1.7 | 1350 sec at f/1.7 | ISO 12800
feet, flip-flops
Thursday 4 June, 2020 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR @ 55 mm | 1/1250 sec at f/4.0 | ISO 200
feet
Bhavna | Wednesday 26 August, 2020 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 1/2500 sec at f/4.0 | ISO 200
feet
Wednesday 26 August, 2020 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 1480 sec at f/13 | ISO 400
footprint
Wednesday 26 August, 2020 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 1/1000 sec at f/8.0 | ISO 320

Monday 16 August 2021

This is an excerpt from “Old America”, a post from the blog of Evan Tucker at The Times of Israel.

If you’re reading history to know what happens next, you won’t know by knowing history. Whether you know the details, you know the basic outline: progress followed by regress, reforms so long delayed they provoke revolutions, true believers proven wrong, revolutionary idealists causing reactionary movements and mass death, the remains conquered by realists who understand human folly, most of whom, being realists, are indifferent to suffering.

Tuesday 17 August 2021

Matt Wright in 35mmc on Picking your Color Negative Film Stock:

My thesis is that if you digitize your negatives, you shoot general purpose film and not specialty film (e.g. Ektar, tinted film, etc), and you shoot it as the manufacturer intended (e.g. without pushing or pulling) the film stock you use isn’t as important as you may think.

My suggestion is that you can simply pick your film stock based on speed, latitude and grain.

Although there are some caveats, many differences between film stocks (including most of what you find online in film stock comparisons such as differences in color and contrast) are largely negligible when applied to real world situations.

Matt has just blown my socks off! I was disappointed with the scans I had received of the same film stock developed at various labs. I bought myself an Epson V600 scanner but struggled to get things just right. I started using Silverfast 9 this week but still struggled to find a workflow that gave consistent results. This morning, I installed Negative Lab Pro for Lightroom, followed Matt's advice, and rescanned some Kodak Pro 100 negatives. I think the results are so much better.

This new workflow will save me money. I will still send my exposed rolls to be developed, but I will no longer pay for scans. I can do the scans at home myself and feel confined that I can get good results.

Based on what I have learned from various online sources and Matt's blog post, I have put together a workflow for colour negatives. The workflow I use for scanning is to scan the 35mm film strips in the holder as 48-bit HDRs with SilverFast 9 set to scan in “positive” mode and save the files as DNG files.

I then import the RAW DNG into Adobe Lightroom. After import, I select all the imported files, and select “File > Plugin-Extras > Update Vuescan/Silverfast DNGs”.

Assuming it all goes well, I use the white balance tool to sample off the film border. I then crop the image to the film border to ensure the film borders are not included in the image evaluation.

Within Adobe Lightroom type CTRL + N or File -> Plug-in Extras -> Negative Lab Pro from the menu, to launch Negative Lab Pro. Set the “Input” to “Vuescan/SF RAW DNG”, set the other pre-conversion settings in Negative Lab Pro and hit “Convert”. Voila!

July 2021 | Minolta XD-11 | MD ROKKOR-X 45mm F2 | Kodak Pro Image 100

Thursday 19 August 2021

After reading the article, How To Use Shadows For Impact1, I have realised that most of my recent images, both digital and analogue, have been a little flat. I may not have realised that I was capturing my images on overcast days. I don't think this was intentional but due to the habit of using the camera later in the day. But also, we've had a lot of overcast days recently.

‘I have always had a wariness of shadows,’ [sic Artist Philippa Stanton] confesses. ‘Shadows can be frightening, an unknown quantity, harbouring threat and shadowy characters. But shadows are a part of life, both aesthetically and spiritually. As silence proves the sound and pausing proves the act, it is always darkness that proves the light.’
...
When used sensitively, however, shadows can serve a whole variety of aesthetic functions: they can direct a viewer’s gaze, help to describe the form of an object, emphasise texture, create a sense of mystery, improve the balance of a composition, become the subject of an image themselves or simply lessen the impact of less-desirable elements in the frame.

I want to return to being more intentional with my photography. This was the norm for me until recent years. Most of my recent photography has been incidental with images captured as a consequence of an activity, e.g. out to dinner or at a family event or even while making coffee in the morning.

I want each photograph to be meaningful, so why not be intentional about the frames I expose? I think I need to head into a nearby downtown to capture pictures of the streets and find and appreciate the unapparent aesthetics, capture things that will remind me of exploring, of experiencing.

Friday 20 August 2021

Dan James writes about "The Soundtrack To Photography":

When I’m out on a photowalk, I always pick the same soundtrack.

That is, quite simply, bird song, the wind in the trees, the rain pattering down, leaves crunching beneath my feet, trickling water, or whatever else nature is providing around me, as I wander through the countryside.

For me this is all part of the joy of photography.

Being out amongst nature and not only seeing with enhanced photographer’s eyes, but paying as much attention to the details of the sonic landscape all around me also.

This too is my experience with photography in nature. I tell people I am a nemophilist, a seldom used word meaning ?A person who loves or is fond of woods or forests."? Dan's post reminded me that's it's been a very long time since I last went on a nature photowalk. I need to experience komorebi and Shinrin Yoku.


  1. How To Use Shadows For Impact, Amateur Photographer Magazine, August 19, 2021 

Delta House

What happened this week.

Tuesday

Travel photographer Jamie Chance has updated his Fujifilm JPEG Settings for 2021.

Whilst the below settings are on my cameras right now, this is by no means my final and complete setup. I love changing and dialling in new recipes depending on my mood. However, I think I might have cracked the perfect seven settings to cover as wide a range as possible.

I’ve used well-crafted film simulation settings from Jamie and Ritchie in the past. What I like about Jamie’s settings is that he offers guidance on when to use them. Summer is almost here, and when I get the updated XF27mmF2.8 R WR lens, I think the Kodachrome II settings will serve me well.

Constant observation is a way of life for some, and the next generation looks set to be worse. We have become so used to look at other peoples lives so much that we expect our own to be under the same scrutiny. ~ Insides vs Outsides

Wednesday

I met a friend and former Squibb colleague for dinner tonight. We haven't seen each other since November 2019, and we both lost a loved one, my Dad in 2019 and her mom, to COVID early in the pandemic. We chatted for a few hours, talking about our concerns over ageing parents, work and kids going off to college. I needed this.


Riccardo makes a point about modern digital camera user interfaces that resonate with me and perhaps many other photographers.

Buttons and dials should be used for all basic functions, everything a photographer needs to quickly adjust in an intuitive way. Setting ISO speeds, changing the white balance, adjusting exposure compensation, focus lock, shooting modes, etc. — all these are functions the user should be able to change without having to look for them in a sprawling menu hierarchy.

This is one of the many reasons I bought my Fuji X-T2 three years ago. The experience of using the controls on my Minolta XD-11 35mm film camera is similar to using the controls on my Fuji X-T2. Buttons and dials allow for “muscle memory” to guide my use of each camera.

Thursday

I am looking outside at a dreary overcast morning and feel some dread that I haven't taken a photograph all this week.


I’ve followed Riccardo's writing for several years. His pieces are typically long and well written. He’s a fan but not a fanatic. It seems I will want to wait until the end of the year (or longer) to replace my 2013 iMac.

In this regard, if you’re a regular user who uses their Mac for everyday tasks, has a minimal backup strategy mainly consisting of Time Machine backups and the occasional manual backup of the most crucial stuff, doesn’t tinker with their machine, and so forth — then the transition from an Intel Mac to an Apple Silicon Mac should be relatively painless.
...
I’m what you would call a power user, but for what I do, I don’t need the latest and more performant machine, so I can play the waiting game without much hassle. Whenever I decide it’s time to upgrade, I always aim for a slightly more powerful Mac than I need because I plan to use such Mac as long as possible as opposed to upgrading frequently.

I think this is sound advice. My late 2013 iMac has served me well over the last 7 years. Unfortunately, it doesn't run the latest macOS, Big Sur, but when Apple releases more power M1X machines later this year, I can maybe ready to order the most powerful machine1 they have that will serve me for the next 7 years.

Friday

W. Abdullah Brooks, MD writing in the Mac Observer..

Apple-critical pieces in the mainstream press often follow one of two patterns: they either negatively evaluate Apple’s policies or products, supplemented with commentary from Apple’s competitors or critics; or they are thinly veiled advocacy pieces designed to get Apple to take a specific action, focussed almost exclusively on Apple irrespective of other industry involvement. This NYT piece seems to fall into the latter category. Either way, like many of both types of criticisms, it was long on complaint and short on solutions. To be clear, big tech, Apple included, have much upon which they can improve; but critical analysis requires context, which in turn defines both expectations and performance indicators.
...
Whenever anyone opines that companies can simply opt not to compete in a market, specifically China’s, they assert that a global company can ignore the world’s largest market whilst their competitors, many of them Chinese, engage.
...
Survival is the long game, requiring both adaptability and seizing of opportunity when it presents itself. Adaptation necessitates sacrifice, not just of the non-essential, but often-times things that are valued. That sacrifice is the price of survival, not simply for survival’s sake, but to help create opportunity and then seize it to change the power dynamics in favor of one’s core values and the freest expression of one’s policies across the board.

By consistent adherence to those core values and policies, that has become Apple’s stratagem and Apple’s gambit.


In his most recent post, Photography And The Joy Of Numbers, Dan James writes about the wonderments of his early days with 35mm film photography and understanding the numbers on his Praktica BMS Electronic and 50mm lens. He then poses the question.??

Do you remember your first days with an SLR or DSLR? How did you make sense of all those numbers?

The first camera I owned, a Pentax P3, was purchased in 1988 solely to take a film photography course at Drew University (C'91) for art credits. Students were expected to provide their own camera equipment and film, but the course fee included access to the on-campus darkroom. I think that on some level, I had an interest in photography. Still, the initial impulse was to meet the expected requirements to graduate with my Bachelor of Arts degree in Physics.

I naively bought the Pentax P3 because the man at the camera store in Flushing (Queens, New York) said it was the best camera for the price. I was further swayed by the fact that it was a Pentax, part of the Asahi Spotmatic II brand name that Dad owned. Had I known that the P3 was being discontinued that same year, I may have bought something else; a Pentax K1000 or better alternatives. I might have bought those instead. But the Pentax P3 was good enough for learning the photography basics covered in the course.

My initial film of choice was black and white, mostly Kodak Tri-X Pan (the update is now called 400TX) and (then new) T-Max 400, but I also used Kodachrome when I could afford it. The P3 can read the DX coding on the film. I quickly learned that ISO 400 film was often too sensitive for bright scenes requiring a shutter speed beyond the 1/1000 sec limit of the P3. I learned that ISO 200 films were best for sunny days and ISO 400 films were a good fit for those dreary winter days on campus. I didn't know about the sunny 16 technique back then, but I wish I had. It would have resulted in more keepers in the early days.

While I enjoyed the occasional one-person portrait, most of my early subjects were objects in my room, buildings around campus, and friends. Looking at my early work, it seems I was in love with f/5.6 and f/4. I rarely used anything wider, and even to this day, these are the most often used apertures on my Fuji X-T2.

It took me several weeks to understand the relationship between ISO, aperture, and film speed. Still, I eventually learned how to combine the "numbers" to achieve my goals and complete the course assignments.

Saturday

Since about 2012, Bhavna and I have been fans of Flounder Brewing in Hillsborough. In the "old days", the only way to get Flounder beer was to sign up for the mailing list, wait for an email announcement, and then queue up outside the warehouse garage on the right day and time with a clean empty growler and hope that the beer didn't run out before we got to the front of the queue.

In 2016, the Boston Brewing Company, makers of Samuel Adams ales, selected Flounder Brewing as the winner of the 2016 “Brewing and Business Experienceship,” a mentoring opportunity awarded to one craft brewer annually as part of the Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream program.

Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 1550 sec at f/4.0 | ISO 400

Co-founder Jeremy “Flounder” Lees used that opportunity and the growing popularity of craft beer brewing in New Jersey to slowly build out his business, crafting easily accessible ales for Somerset County residents. Flounder Brewing was the first extant nano craft brewery in Somerset County. For years, Flounder Brewing served porters, stouts, IPAs, hefeweizens, and farmhouse ales out of a garage in an industrial park at 1 Ilene Court in Hillsborough.

When they expanded production to more regularly releases and added a few bar height tables, we were excited. So while our kids took Tae Kwon Do classes at the nearby Kickside Martial Arts Academy, Bhavna and I would pop into Jersey Mikes for a sub sandwich and then drive over to Flounder Brewing for a pint of the flagship ale Hill Street Honey Blonder or treat ourselves to Double Dry Hopped Genevieve. Over the years, we have come to know the taproom staff (William (Billy) Jordan, Bill "Woody" Woodrugg, Caitlin, the brewmaster Doug Duschl) and founder Jeremy. Today we saw the manifestation of a vision Jeremy had nearly nine years when Flounder Brewing started selling beer to the public.

Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 180 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 3200

The soft opening of the new brewery was just for the Delta House Membership, a limited set of customers who have paid a membership fee for access to special events and promotions. On our first visit as a Delta House Member, we received a membership card, limited edition Delta House glassware and a limited edition 32oz Delta House growler. The glass was to take home (not to be used at the brewery), and the 32oz growler was for special fills at later dates. Flounder Brewing will not be fulfilling any to-go orders for the first month or so of operations as they manage their inventory while bringing the larger 15 barrel brewhouse online.

Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 180 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 3200
Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 1420 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 400
Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 1550 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 400

The new location is constructed from floor and beams from the original Dutch barn at Carriage Farm, a 250-year-old working farm on Clerico Lane. This helps anchors the brewery with character, historical and agriculture elements. In addition, flounder recycles the used hops and grains from brewing and gives them to Dutch Hollow Farms in Bridgewater for animal food. The brewery also collects and reuses rainwater. Large garage doors on either side of the barn lead outside the taproom to a beer garden with picnic tables.

Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 180 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 4000
Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 130 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 6400
Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 150 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 12800
Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 180 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 2000

Upstairs we found another large tasting room that I think is perfect for hosting a private party. My 55th birthday is in November.

The tasting room is friendly and open, with plenty of airflow and tables that are spaced out, along with two outdoor patios. This is the first time Flounder has had a dedicated tasting space, the first time they served beer glassware, and the first time they ran a long draw draft system.

Bhavna and I were allowed to each bring two guests. Given that this was the first weekend that Governor Murphy had removed pandemic mask-wearing and other restrictions, most of our invitees declined to decline. But my friend and fellow photographer Ed Velez joined us. We had fun exploring the new farmhouse building, and Ed enjoyed tasting the ales.

Bhavna's hair blowing in the breeze | Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 1100 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 400
Strawberry Patch | Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 180 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 1250
Finishing Touches | Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 180 sec at f/4.0 | ISO 1000
Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | 180 sec at f/5.6 | ISO 3200
Saturday 5 June, 2021 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8

Sunday

Argh! The Darkroom refunded a portion of my recent 35mm film developing order. I sent them a 35mm film roll each of ADOX Scala 160, Rollei 100, and Svema Foto 200. Darkroom says they can't process B&W white reversal film. The Scala 100 is a B&W film reversal film. I've just wasted 30 minutes trying to find somewhere in the USA to process this roll of the film once it is returned to me. The ADOX.de website recommended dr5 chrome, a Stuart, Iowa based film lab offering custom B&W slide film processing that was created by a photographer and photographic chemist David Wood.

I don't remember why I bought this film if I had no way to develop the film and get scans.


There are various blue objects, from umbrellas to signage, to t-shirts, to glassware, that I hope suitable for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #151: From Large to Small.


  1. My iMac sees: 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4 GB