Last week I was stuck at home with another virus caught from kissing my kids too much, and I missed the first glorious day of the season, so this weekend, for the first day of Spring, I was extremely eager to get back to my hunting ground on State St.

I did however make a few questionable decisions.

First was my choice to take the Kiev88. Last time it was overcast and I still got some heavy light leaks, but this time with a bright and sunny mid-day light, it was simply too much. I almost wonder why I bothered to even meter, because amount of light hitting the film is clearly not the same amount as I measure… I also feel like these leaks might be getting worse, so I should probably keep this camera for in studio work, and do my medium format street photography with the Yashica Mat EM.

Second might have been to shoot it with Kodak Portra160. I rated it at 320 (again, that might be totally off due to the amount light leaking in) and pushed one stop in a batch of chemicals not-quite-fresh-anymore. The tones still turned out pretty, but I had to work a lot on these images in post-production and seriously wondered if it was worth the trouble. I’ll let you judge by yourselves.

The monochromatic images were taken on Kodak TriX rated and developed at 400, with a new-to-me Olympus Stylus 120 I just bought at a local thrift store and was testing out – I even tested the date feature! After months of picking up cameras, testing them, and recirculating them, I think I finally found my point-and-shoot camera. To be perfectly honest I wouldn’t have bought it for what it currently costs on the free market, these prices are ridiculous, but I must say that this is really a lovely little camera that’s very pleasant to use and takes nice images.