An early-00s F-150 and a late 90s Roadmaster trike. Captured this past summer at my in-laws house.

Photographed on a Nikon FM2 with a 50mm F1.4 lens on expired (early 2010s) Kodak Gold 200.

One of our family goals this past year was to explore more of Michigan, the state we proudly call home. While traveling with two young children is far from convenient, we managed to make it to nearly every corner of the lower peninsula.

One of our family goals going into 2024 is to further explore Michigan and The Great Lakes that surround us. Specifically, we hope to make it to the upper peninsula as a family. I had the opportunity to explore some of the U.P. this year thanks to a work trip, but I was only briefly able to see the beauty and solitude it affords. Now it’s time to explore it with my wife and two ever-curious children.

These shots are a few black-and-white photographs I captured on one of the aforementioned trips—specifically, a trip to Muskegon, Michigan. They were shot on a Nikon FM2 with Tri-X 400 exposed at the rated ISO. I’ve been exploring a bit with Acros II over the past year or two after I picked up a few dozen rolls at an unbeatable price, but I always come back to Tri-X when I’m looking for flexibility. It can be pushed, pulled, and adjusted during development to no end and always comes out with the results I’m expecting. The perfect utilitarian film stock.

I’ve never been much of a fan of county or state fairs. I’m not exactly sure of the source of my aversion, but it’s probably a safe bet to assume it has something to do with mostly unwillingly going to them as a child living in small-town Indiana.

Despite my general disdain for a variety of reasons, I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn’t enjoy them for the collage of colors and characters they bring out—even more so when you shoot it with some expired Fujifilm Superior 200 stock from the freezer.

These particular images were taken at a small-town Ohio county fair, where we go to annually in the town my wife was born and raised in. Not seen in this series are the adorable photos I snapped of my kids and wife having a wonderful time on rides. But those are destined for the frames in the living room family scrapbook, not my blog.

I previously mentioned I was at Virginia International Raceway as part of Car and Driver’s annual Lightning Lap event. While my driving of fast, expensive cars was mostly limited to hauling them from one side of the track to another at no more than 30mph, I did manage to sneak in a hot lap as a passenger inside the Air Sapphire, a ridiculous EV made by Lucid.

I’ve loved fast cars all my life and have spent years shooting them trackside. But I haven’t gotten to ride in too many cars at high speed. Combine that with the fact I, until this event, had never ridden inside a fully electric vehicle, my breadth of experience is limited. That said, the Lucid Air Sapphire, at least at speed, was unlike any other car I’ve been in.

The amount of torque the Air Sapphire puts out on acceleration is incredible and taking high-speed turns felt like cutting through recently-Zamboni’d ice with a fresh pair of skates—on edge while still having just the right amount of grip. It’s clear why they named this vehicle the “Air.” No oversteer, no wheelspin—just pure speed and the grip to keep it all between the lines (with some help from our talented driver, Car and Driver Technical Editor, Dan Edmunds. Granted, you’d expect this from a $250,000 EV, but actually feeling it in action was an experience I won’t soon forget.

The above photo is one I snapped of the Air Sapphire as it sat after a hot lap around VIR’s Grand Course. It was shot on Kodak Gold 200 inside my Contax 645 with a 80mm F2 Zeiss lens and developed/scanned by Nice Film Club out of Brooklyn, NY. I’m not sure what magical elements all came together to get the exact look if I’m being honest, but the green tint to the glass, the soft purple shadows, and the colorful reflections instantly made me think of the iconic work of Saul Leiter, who photographed much of his color New York street photography on Kodachrome (his black and white work is incredible as well).

Leiter has always been a photographer whose work I’ve come back to time and time again and Kodachrome is a film stock I’ve always wished I’d had the opportunity to shoot with before it was declared dead, so to get this look with a modern film stock is a nice surprise.

Little victories

After self-publishing her first poetry book and debating whether or not to do the same for her second—which is about 80% complete—my wife informed me today she sent off her first proposal to a publisher. As so many are, this particular publisher severely backlogged, but it’s a reason for celebration regardless of the outcome. I couldn’t be more proud of her and the effort she’s put into this second book.