Airports on Delta 100

Beginning in the late 1980’s and through to 2013 I traveled almost weekly in my job shooting travel features for a large magazine based in the South of the US. I didn’t have a mobile phone until the first iPhone came out, buying my first in 2008. Like many I began using the camera all the time. Those early iPhone shots were technically pretty awful but had their own lo-fi cool.

Because I was in airports almost every week, I started shooting scenes in airports and it became a theme in my social media posts. People started paying attention to them. I started looking for ways to make them better or more unique than the previous ones. It was a lot of fun.

When the magazine ‘helped’ me leave I thought I would continue to freelance travel since it’s what I had been doing for those 24 years. I quickly realized I didn’t want to go any more and started freelancing locally and enjoying the variety of clients and subjects. And I definitely didn’t miss the airports after 4 million plus miles.

But I did miss the photos from airports. Since then, my only flying has been for annual family gatherings with my siblings. We rotate visits between each other’s homes in Denver, Long Beach and Dallas. In the last couple years, I’ve started shooting a couple rolls of black and white film again. In April on this year’s gathering I decided to shoot film in the airports instead of the iPhone and it’s easy colorful and quickly edited results.

My mistake was loading a roll of Delta 100. It’s my current favorite B&W film but just wasn’t made for fast-shuffling crowds and congested interiors. I had a direct flight from my home to Dallas so without a connection I had less time to explore like I would where I normally go through ATL.

These are my least successful photos since my return to film and my least successful airport photos too. Still, it’s all a learning experience and if we learn from our mistakes then I have learned a lot.  All shot with my Leica M3 and a 50mm f2 Summicron. The flight was around 6:am and the weather heavily overcast. I would have been much better off with a roll of Tri-X.

My most successful shot is the final this one of my niece Kelsie and her daughter Frankie in my brother’s back yard just before I left for the flight home. It was the last frame of 24.

My wife and I are moving soon. My film developing chemicals are packed so I used our local lab here in Birmingham Alabama Electra Film Lab to process and scan. They’re excellent.

And I have to add that the TSA in Birmingham and Dallas was very willing to hand check my film which I was worried about.

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