My Dad’s last (film) photographs

Alex Harvey Cockroft, Jr., my dad, passed away in late August 2022. I haven’t written about his passing or mentioned it in social media at all: it’s a personal thing and I don’t air out my grief in public… assuming there’s any grief to air out. In cleaning out his apartment and disposing of his …

Morning Light

A couple of years ago, I picked up my beloved Niko 50mm f/1.8 E and found the focus ring unusably stiff. Within seconds, I was on the ‘bay to acquire another, but found prices outrageous. For about $20 more than the average price of a good, tested, guaranteed E-Series, I scored a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 …

Svema Color 125 in 120?

Many years ago, I acquired 3 rolls of Svema Color 125 from the good people at the FPP. I shot two of them straight—the first one, never shared, with many, many operator errors; the second beautifully, albeit with some processing errors—and a third redscaled, and almost pulled the trigger on a bulk roll a handful …

Battle of the Ultra Wide (& Slim)s

When I first heard that RETO planned to produce a copy of the Ultra Wide & Slim camera, I didn’t need another camera… But at $25, I really couldn’t pass it up either… It was a quick impulse preorder/purchase, using ApplePay on my phone, and to my horror and fury, instead of $25, or $33 …

Ice & Snow in Black & Blue

Snow in North Texas is an event. Really, it’s not too unusual: it probably snows 1/4 inch or so every third year, and maybe we see the odd 6 or 14 inches once a decade. Last year’s snowpocalypse was unusual more for the excruciatingly low temperatures (1F or 0F or -1F depending on who you …

A brief visit to Lake Worth

One weekend in late December, 2021, or early January 2022—the days do run together—my darling, adorable wife and I took a drive out to Lake Worth, northwest of Fort Worth, Texas, and took Watercress Drive along the north shore for a bit, with a brief stop at Sunset Park to pick up some kindling (Hana) …

20 shots from the LC-A for no good reason

After 1/26 and 1/27 comes 1/28, with which has no obvious association with an obsolete film format, and so is just another Friday… While shooting some for 126 Day and 127 Day, I also happened to be testing an LC-A that I had taped closed and written ‘Stuck Shutter’ on some months or years ago, …