Spring in LA with the Nikon Fm2n
It’s 2026 and I keep burning money, taking pictures of garbage and flowers on a 40 year old Nikon film camera. It’s the same camera Steve McCurry used when he photographed “Afghan Girl” (Sharbat Gula) for the National Geographic. It’s not the pinnacle of 20th century engineering, but it’s a solid tool, fully mechanical, a brick of metal of glass.
The light meter is broken, but that’s OK, because the light in LA is consistent. You only need two settings: sun (f16) and shade (f4). And a forgiving film stock. What you see here is either Porta 400 or Gold.
I would have had more photos of the musicians, as they were gracious and not afraid of being photographed, but as soon as we started talking in broken spanglish they got called in by their leader to begin entertaining wedding guests.
The goats probably deserve their own post, they’re part of the city of Pasadena’s effort to reduce wildfire risk in the chaparral. Instead of using chemicals or machinery, they’ve hired hundreds of hungry goats to tear through the underbrush and entertain four year olds.
As long as I have breath and food, I will probably keep dumping money into Kodak film stock, but not the Wall Street one (it’s not doing so well).
