Neon: Fargo
“FARG” Fargo, North Dakota
How the hell was I supposed to meter for that?
It was the fifth day on the road. The first three days of the drive involving nothing but the monotony of corn fields, but it was hardly the beginning of the trip. The true start was about to happen today. We had checked into the hotel just up the street from where the first reading of Price Per Barrel: The Human Cost of Extraction was to take place. Checking out Zandbroz Variety, the bookseller who was hosting the event, there was time to do a little recon around downtown Fargo. I saw some pretty good subjects and was left with only the decision of what film to use.
My desk job can be rather complex some days, easier on others. There are nearly a thousand people on my shift. I sit on a pretty busy aisle. I am easily distracted especially by loud talking. People like to congregate right outside of my cubicle and hold lengthy conversations. The only way I can function is by having my headphones on and listening to something on YouTube. Sometimes it’s music, sometimes its a show like “SciShow”, “Answers with Joe”, “Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t” (Joey Santore does the Lord’s work), but I also listen to my favorite photographers: Ben Horne, Gavin Hardcastle (fototripper), Thomas Heaton, Borut Peterlin (topshitphotography), Adam Gibbs, Nigel Danson, Simon Baxter, and Jason Kummerfeldt (Grainydays) just to name a few. Each has their own approach to photography, and I have learned a lot from them. So, what does that have to do with a nighttime street in Fargo, North Dakota?
Grainydays. It’s his fault.
I knew that there would be the opportunity to shoot neon signs on this road trip. I am a neon addict, even though I have never huffed the stuff. I have never even taken a photograph of it. But I love the aesthetic of neon. It stirs a nostalgia for a time to which I really have no claim to since so much of it has been taken down. In most places these are only the ghosts of lettering imprinted in sheet metal.
From Grainydays, I learned about Cinestill 800T. It’s actually motion picture film stock with it’s anti-halation layer removed so that it can be C-41 processed by a standard film lab. Neon and CS800T is full of obsessive teenage-angsty love. The kind that makes for TV drama and a secret guilty pleasure. Kind of like watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Bottom line, it’s good and full of drama. Add some wet surfaces so there are reflections and it’s a panty dropper. There was no other choice than to give in to these feelings, load a roll of Cinestill 800T into the Rollei 2.8e, and take to the streets.
I have never shot in the dark, except in the depths of a New York cave. But that’s an entirely different kind of dark. It requires long exposure and either remote flashes or painting the walls with light.
I walked back to Zandbroz Variety and evaluated my scene. But, looking at it thought, what the hell do I meter for? I set up my tripod, mounted the brick shaped camera, and attached my cable release. A few people walked toward me on the sidewalk, giving me strange glances. My palms were sweaty in the damp coolness of the evening.
Cinestill, will she even like me? It was a literal blind date.
I squared up my scene in the view finder. It looked perfect. I had everything in pin-sharp focus. Lifting the Seikonic light meter to my eye, I metered on the sidewalk underneath a street lamp where the light puddled. I placed the Zandbroz logo, a glowing Z just to the right of center. At f8 my meter reading was 1/120 of a second. So, this is a shutter speed that I could not really predict. I usually do not shoot at ASA800. I pressed the shutter release. I bracketed one stop above and below in hopes that I might capture a useable image. There was “no telling without knowing” if I had captured the image well. That’s what makes shooting film both frustrating and magical. There is an alchemy to the process that romanced me back to film.
Walking back toward my hotel, the neon sign of the Fargo Theatre was glowing like a beacon. The “O” has burned out, but I was like a moth to it’s flame anyway. Magic. Suddenly while I was in the middle of setting up my shot, a drunk guy using parking meters as walking sticks made his way toward me. He shutterblocked the moment. We talk for a few minutes, he’s from the oil patch of west Texas. Fortunately I was able to get back into the moment, again metering for the pools of light on the sidewalk and bracketing one stop over and under. I finished the roll, and packed the camera away.
I did not shoot the second roll of Cinestill 800 on the trip. When I got home I dropped off the roll from Fargo at my local lab. “Cinestill…nice” said the young man behind the counter.
“Yeah, I am really looking forward to seeing how everything turned out. I have never shot with it before.” Two days later I swung by and picked it up. When I saw the first frames in the preview scan…I knew she liked me.
The Takeaway:
Overall I find this film to be pretty forgiving. Even my darker images contained useable detail, however I found that my initial instincts of what I metered for to be accurate, and there was only minor adjustments to my curves in post. The fine detail is really impressive even for a faster speed film (faster usually equals more grain). I am hoping to see what it can do in daylight, however since it is a tungsten film, everything will take on a blue cast in bright daylight, so a warming filter would be needed to compensate, though the blue could really be nicely atmospheric. Por que no los dos?
If you are interested, prints are available for “Z” are available here.