We spent a couple of nights in Kalama, a whistlestop town on I-5 partway between Seattle and Portland. It was “basecamp” for our drive around both sides of Mount St. Helens.
Our literal “base camp” was up in the hills above Kalama’s business district, on a homestead farm called Highland & Co Acres. The experience was like stepping into one of those Netflix design shows, spending two nights in a tiny cabin made from shipping containers. We had fresh eggs and wildberry jam for breakfast sourced from the property. A rooster literally crowed us awake in the morning. It was all so disgustingly and blissfully twee.
I find the building typologies and mom n’ pop type shops in these little roadside towns that line the West Coast endlessly fascinating, especially when I get the chance to see the same street in different lighting conditions.
All these photos were from the same gloomy afternoon or morning after, but later that second day, the sun broke through & put this whole place in a different light.
One of the main things to do in Kalama seems to be thrifting. There are maybe three or four little antique and vintage stores on the main strip; I went into one of them and left with a genuine (read: “gen-you-wine”) piece of uranium glass (not pictured) – a candy bowl, I believe.
Now, a little light googling tells you that uranium glass is harmless – that the radiation it emits is no higher than your average electronic device. But you also learn it’s probably best not to eat any candy off the glass. So, it’s probably best I keep the thing on a shelf to admire from a distance.
The biggest attractions at the farm we stayed in, and the reason it’s called Highland & Co Acres, were the three bonnie “hairy coos” who love to moo you good morning in hopes of snarfing down a wee apple or some bread. Och, it was just like teleporting back to Scotland, where Christine and I first met. Except the only coos I actually saw there were sold to tourists on tartan tat.
We didn’t get a chance to sample a “Martian Mocha” (white chocolate, pistachio, and amaretto) or “A-Bomb” (house coffee and espresso) at this cutie patootie, but this post is a friendly reminder to mark your calendar for the Seattle stop of the @uraniumfilm Turtle Island tour at @nwfilmforum on April 13 & 14. We’ll celebrate the festival’s arrival in Seattle with a special screening of the classic 1982 “The Atomic Cafe” (no relation to @atomiccoffeeandbakery) on April 12, so if you’re interested in nuclear history and culture, or in good documentary cinema in general, be sure to be there or be square-shaped. See also: x
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Christine wanted a quick demo of how depth of field is affected by aperture size for her middle school class, so we made this on our trip to Kalama using a school provided Canon Rebel T6.
The wider the aperture, the more light gets through, the more shallow the depth of field (i.e. the blurrier the background). Optics!
Counterintuitively, a wide aperture is indicated by a small f-stop number. Science! Tradition? I haven’t actually looked up why that is, tbh.
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We stopped here very briefly on our way to Mount St. Helens and I managed to get two comparison shots despite the rain: 1. with a digital Fujifilm XT4 with a 25mm TTArtisan lens, and 2. with an analog Lomo Smena Symbol on Cinestill 800T film.
We had no idea there’d be snow here and I think we would have been too nervous to go if we’d known, but our trusty old Sonata (R.I.P.) made it and I’m so glad, because the place was a thousand times more enchanting under a blanket of snow. Swipe to see another bonus digital/analog comparison.
We literally experienced two seasons in one day when visiting both sides of Mount St. Helens. This is the marshy area just below the visitor center, which was also closed that day.
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I haven’t used my Smena Symbol much because it takes some getting used to. As a rangefinder camera, it’s hard to get things in focus, and even though I got an attachment that’s supposed to help with that, it’s still pretty hit or miss.
I also tried using it more as it’s designed, which is to sort of set it and forget it when it comes to aperture, making light adjustments with shutter speed instead. That’s counter intuitive for me and not great for avoiding camera shake, but an interesting design feature.
It’s actually a lot of fun to use if you’re not too precious about the results! Kinda like a Holga, in that sense, but more satisfying as a tactile object. See also: x x x
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We spent a morning in Portland before heading back home after our trip to Mount St. Helens. Here’s an assortment of street views on Cinestill 800T as captured on an old Soviet Lomo Smena Symbol.
We ended up having lunch at this fabulous Burmese restaurant completely by chance. Portland has this tendency to close stuff on random days, or at least, that was my experience when I first visited years ago; we arrived on a Monday and barely anything was open. This time around, the place we aimed for just happened to close only on Tuesdays… The more you know.
I was curious to see how the camera would do in this dimly lit space; I think I could have even let the shutter speed be, because the 800T handled it well.
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It’s kinda weird to be going through our road trip photos on the day we’re selling our car as scrap. That’s right. Our little car that could — a 2012 model with a million problems we bought three years ago and christened “Mirabilis” as a Leo season leap of faith in a career pivot — is no more.
She had one last hurrah and died a catastrophic death the other day requiring repairs that cost more than we originally paid for her, so she is road trippin’ with her two favorite allies no longer. Thank God she decided to get us home safely first.
The funny thing is that this story’s end appears to have been predestined; back when we agonized about the purchase, Christine consulted the cards that insisted, quite persistently, that we would not be keeping this car for more than 3 years. And lo, despite many visits to the dealership to keep the chitty-chitty banging, the prophesy has come to pass.
Crashes to dashes, rust to rust. What will be will beep.