“Long Road Ahead”|Tenerife|1990

This is another find from the archives, caught on film back when all I had in my pocket was the trusty Olympus Trip 35. It was loaded with a roll of Kodak TRI-X, a combination that practically defined that era for me.

I remember jumping out of the car and laying flat in the middle of the road to get the perspective just right. I managed to fire off three frames before jumping back in and carrying on with the journey. At the time, I was incredibly pleased with the result, though looking at it now with more experienced eyes, I’d probably approach the shot quite differently if I ever made it back to that spot.

Still, the image holds fond memories. It represents a time when taking a picture was a much more deliberate, difficult process, and developing a roll of film was still exciting, uncharted territory. Looking back at that horizon, there was indeed a long road ahead.

Using the Olympus Trip 35 in Auto mode meant relying on that famous selenium light meter “red flag” system. To get f/22 at 1/200, you must have had some seriously bright light hitting that ISO 400 film. Digitizing it later in Photoshop CS2 allowed me to preserve that classic TRI-X grain that gives the shot its soul.

It’s amazing how a simple 40mm fixed lens can still tell such a expansive story.

capture date | 19.04.1990
camera | Olympus Trip 35
lens | 40mm f/2.8
focal length | 40mm
aperture | f/22
shutter speed | 1/200
shooting mode | auto
exposure bias  | +0.0
metering mode | centre weighted
ISO | 400
flash | no
image quality | scan
RAW converter | Photoshop CS2
cropped? | yes

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n.b.
18 years ago

This is a good one!

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cropped?