new tent (2023) (Patreon)

To be fair, this one does what it says on the tin. My partner got a new glamping tent, and we wanted to try it out, so we pitched it in our yard (told y'all I live in the middle of absolutely nowhere). Despite being a few-to-several-drinks in to enter the appropriate mood for watching But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) I was still able to properly focus a 20mm lens on the stars. It's funny, it's a pretty straightforward image to me but my house is so rural it's incredible how clearly the Milky Way comes through, so I figured it was still worth using as a daily photo.

I do miss being at a lower latitude where I could see more of the Milky Way's core, but the shot is still fine. I haven't tent camped other than on press trips, so I'm kind of excited to actually go camping (for real, not in our backyard) in this thing.

Anyway, thanks to y'all I bought myself a much-needed new circular polarizer after my old B+W 77mm finally bound up on me and kept getting stuck to my lenses when I'd try to rotate it. I got a PolarPro with a brass ring and I am certain it's the nicest polarizer I've ever used, so that's exciting, because I shoot pretty much 90% of my shots with a circular polarizer. (The first article of mine that'll be on Digital Photography Review is a tutorial on how to use them, even!) 

I also got a Tiffen Black Pro-Mist (1/2) filter, because I really want to try intentional halation effects, primarily on boudoir portraiture (probably won't be sharing those here) and neon-lit night photography (much more likely to be seen here). I haven't had much of a chance to mess with it yet but I'm going to bring it with me on my next press trip that I'm leaving for in a few days that takes me to Sonoma, then Oakland, so that I can give it a shot on some night city photography; I think it will work well there.