It’s hard to remember now but there used to be a time that one could travel and it was rather lovely. Last year around this time I had the chance to travel with some friends to their family’s vacation home in Sperlonga, Italy and I couldn’t pass that up! It was a brief but relaxing trip just hanging out in this small beach town halfway between Rome and Naples. A bit different than American beach towns and I am for it!

I did, of course, have to bring some cameras and, if ya know me at all, it wasn’t just one. I did manage to fit them into a small shoulder sling though so it wasn’t too bad. A small Super 8 camera with Ektachrome, a friend’s TLR medium format camera, a little 35mm compact and my favorite Polaroid camera with some expired film.

(Click any images for full size)

Had some fun with the Super 8 throughout the week and mainly just chose to shoot little Italian scenes and then the occasional wild boat ride. I hand processed the film at Mono No Aware in Brooklyn, a great little non-profit I help with sometimes. Also shooting medium format while traveling was different. Given the slow pace and fewer exposures, the photos weren’t quick snapshots but I think the results were worth it.

We didn’t do much, which was a change of pace for Stephanie and I but we quickly adapted and enjoyed it. Italian life is totally foreign (for lack of a more fitting term) to us Americans. The streets were empty before 10am (which now makes the photos give off erie COVID era vibes) and an early afternoon coffee break was the norm. Not much of a coffee drinker myself but didn’t mind the pace of life. Nightlife even for kids continued pretty late in the streets which explained the deserted mornings.

Our friend’s family home was quite vertical and narrow but so quaint and had an incredible rooftop view of the town, especially at sunset. Many evenings were spent drinking wine and have some fresh mozzarella there. I miss it!

We rented a small motor boat a couple of the days for some brief excursions to small coves and even a little island for lunch and wine. Just getting off of the land and looking back at the cute little town was amazing. Things may have gotten a bit rowdy on the boat as we sped around. Not going to lie. And we did run out of gas at one point on the water which was a bit awkward but we survived. We also made a brief stop in Naples to see the city of Pompeii which was pretty amazing and of course for some fantastic pizza and a speeding ticket as well. What can ya do!

These days, such a trip seems like such a fairy tale, and even then it was. Looking forward to more goofy and relaxing travels with friends in the future when we all can travel again! Until then, still lifes with my plants will have to do. I’ll leave ya with a portrait of Stephanie and I on the TLR courtesy of my friend, Alex.

And for the film nerds reading… the specifics of my little film travel kit are

Medium format - Mamiya C330 (Lomography CN100. Lomography F2 400, Kodak Ektachrome 100 expired, Fuji Pro400H)
35mm - Olympus Infinity Stylus (Kodak ProImage 100, Kodak Ektar 100, Kodak Tri-X)
Super 8 - Canon 514XL (Kodak Ektachrome 7285 expired)
Polaroid - Polaroid 110B modified (Polaroid 669 expired, Polaroid 689 expired)

I obviously shoot a ton of Super 8 film as anyone who's ever visited my website or Instagram can see. So it was a real treat to find out last spring that while I was at a Mono No Aware fundraiser, that I won the raffle for a Mono No Aware workshop where a group of people would take a van loaded with cameras, film and snacks upstate to Hudson, NY and Kaaterskill Falls to shoot some 16mm! My first time!

Our first destination was the Olana State Historic Site along the Hudson River, home of Frederic Edwin Church, who was a landscape painter from the Hudson River School. There we had a brief chat with our guide and filmmaker, Fern Silva, and Steve Cossman (founder of Mono No Aware) about the history of the area both in painting as well as 16mm film. Peter Hutton was a filmmaker that shot many serene landscapes of the Hudson Valley and American cities on 16mm film and lived in the area until his passing in 2016. And so, inspired by those who came before us, we set out to create our own portraits of the landscape. We left the historic set and went over to Kaaterskill Falls to start our hike.

We were provided Bolex H16 REX5 16mm cameras, courtesy of Mono No Aware, to use and some Kodak Vision3 50D color negative film. Given the bright sunny day and gorgeous springtime colors, it was a perfect match. I also brought along my Minolta Instant Pro, which is a Polaroid Spectra camera, and a Pentax Auto 110, which I found fitting as it's a 110 camera which is actually just 16mm film cut down for still cameras. Unfortunately, that camera has some winding issues aaaand I may have dropped it at one point on the hike so the photos are cropped a little funny. But so it goes...

We hiked around with our fairly heavy Bolex's, chatted a bunch, saw some waterfalls and very cool landscapes and ate delicious food Steve had prepared. Overall, a great way to spend a day. I just received a “K-3” Krasnogorsk-3 16mm camera and I'm now very eager to shoot more of the format. I already shot a some test rolls and a little music video with it a few weeks ago. And just shot another music video this weekend! So lots to look forward to including Kodak re-releasing Ektachrome in 16mm!