Pack to the Future

In each place I have traveled, I have used my camera as an extension of my memory.

In photography and in life, always look for the light. If you don't see it, bring it. Music. Hey welcome to the street shots photography podcast this is antonio and this is ward, And this is episode 232, which happens to be the area code for Sierra Leone. The international country code for Sierra Leone. Well, you know, I did, I did a search for it and it said area code, but I know it's the international code. Yeah. But some way, yeah. Well, I don't think they call it, they couldn't call

them an area code, right? No. It's a whole country. Yeah. They get their own country code. Yeah. Well, greetings, Sierra Leone. Hopefully there's somebody out there listening to us from there. Would love to have, reach out, let us, let us know that you're there. But yeah, sorry.

Episode 232 for the middle of June, 2025. And there goes my Evergreen account. So it's, we've just dated it. So I can't say this. Well, I just, you know, I was thinking that these, these podcasts would be evergreen, but we start dating them and people listening to them. I don't want to listen to this because it's. Well, we can date them if the content is evergreen. I want to think. The content is, yeah. The lessons we learn and we share are still good, I think.

Yes. Well, let's, let's, let's keep that going. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Well, here we are. How are you? I'm doing well. We had some nice warm, but smoky days these days. Yeah. I've been hearing about that. Wow. Yeah. Mm-hmm. We've actually been seeing some, well, earlier in the week or last week, we had some, some Canadian haze, I think it was. Well, we've got our air quality indexes 10 plus, which is on the bad end of the scale in terms of air quality.

It's not, it's not like, you know, you know, movie badness or whatever like that. It's not quite that bad. It's not affecting, you know, short, short range visibility or anything like that, but certainly visible and you can certainly smell it out there. But yeah, I was walking the dog just before, just before the show here and you can definitely see it and smell it. So yeah. Yeah. That's it. It's wildfires again. Wildfire's about 400 miles north of here.

And the wind is supposed to change direction in the next couple of days and blow it back north again. So hopefully it'll clear out, but it doesn't help the people up north that are still, still dealing. Any rain in the forecast? Not in the next seven days. No, no. So yeah, you gotta figure that out and decide which fires to fight. Yeah. As you're saying that, I'm just remembering two years ago when the, was it Eastern Canada fires reached all the way down East coast and I,

I had never seen anything like that. Never. Even when we had local fires, like in New Jersey or something like that, cause the prevailing winds come from, you know, West to East. And so it would happen in Jersey and then it would come over here. But I, I had never seen, I had never seen the sky or the, the environment turned that orange.

It looked like, you know, the scene in Blade Runner 2049 when, you know, Ryan Gosling is Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan Gosling walking towards, walking towards the, you know, Las Vegas scene and it's all orange. And I was like, it's funny because I actually took a picture with the camera and it had auto white balance on and it totally, totally negated the orange And I was like, oh, that just was like a foggy day.

I hope it never gets like that again. I mean, that was so bad that, you know, my air purifiers kicked up on, on full for a while. And I actually closed the windows and could smell that fire smoke. And I just have my, my heart goes out to people who have to live with this all the time or even like, you know, some of the time in the air. So, but that was, that was, I took pictures just to like, you know, I had to, like I said, I documented everybody else.

I had to like change the white balance back to like, this is what it actually looked like, you know? So, um, but anyway, all right, well, good luck with that. I mean, I don't know where all the rain is. We had, we had some, we had some pretty decent storms in the past week. It doesn't help my mood in terms of like waking up in as gray. So, you know, I'm in a better mood when I'm packing than when it's sunny out. And someone said, well, why would that be? Because you're inside all the time.

And do you want to be inside when it's nice? I'm like, no, it's easier when it's nicer out. It just for some reason feels like I got my energy up and I'm like, okay, I can start packing. And, you know, but... Yeah. Packing by the way. Yeah. Well, I grew up in communities where rain was always welcomed. So, you know, we get so many, we had like 300 days of sun here, right? Which is fantastic.

But rain is a novelty and I have been known to just go out and walk, you know, just go for a short walk with no windbreaker on or anything just to get a little bit wet and cool off and so on, that kind of thing. And like the farmers say, you know, it settles the dust. We need enough rain to settle the dust. Okay. Settle the dust. that way. All right. So. Actually, one of the storms that came through, I love photographing the storms.

This is what I'm looking forward to when I move, just like to have some big weather visible. And like I was looking out the window and it was a, it was a kind of thunderstormy storm, but without the thunder and lightning, it was just like one of those big, heavy screens. And then it passed. Yeah. And then it passed and I looked at the window and I saw sun, like I've got my shades down so I can only see the buildings and I can see the

sun. It was late in the afternoon, so I could see the sun. I'm like, rainbow, I know it. So I get up and I go out to my terrace and there's a rainbow. This is the first time I've ever seen it like this. It was right in front of me. In other words, I could see where the beginning and the end were. Yeah. There was the end, or getting an end. Why is there a very end? If I go left or right, the left part was in front of a building.

About a block or two away. and the right end was also in front of a building on the corner of Cortell U and Ocean Parkway. Oh, okay. I could see it, you know? I'll try to put those in the show notes where I'll make it just because the, so all I had was my phone at the time and I'm snapshotting and then, you know, the clouds are moving and the rainbow's starting to move back. I could see it actually move with the storm.

Right. Or with the clouds or something like that, I guess, because as the light was changing or as the rain was moving or something, It started to move backwards and I'd never seen anything like that. And by the way, there is no pot of gold. That I could see on either end. But I saw the ends of the rainbow. Cool.

So I feel like I was privileged in some sense, but I took like half a dozen shots with my phone, gave it a little processing and put it on, you know, Facebook for my neighborhood to show. Cause people like to see stuff that I post from my window and everybody's like freaking out and like, wow, this is what I'm doing. It's like, it's just, you know, this is what I saw out the window.

It's nature. I'm just, I like to say that I'm just the messenger you know i'm just i'm just showing you it was but it was it was really spectacular and that kind of stuff those kind of big weather events that show a lot of ripply clouds and that light that dark dark clouds with like that late afternoon light again it must be this leftover thing that i've got from that ernst haas picture of new mexico and shooting towards the dark clouds but the sun behind you lighting.

The sun is lighting from low and it's, yeah, and he's compressed and stuff like that. Yeah. Like that's embedded in my, in my psyche and my DNA now. So every time I see that, it's just, I've got a photograph of it. I just love looking at it. Nebraska will not disappoint you there. I'm sure you'll have plenty of opportunity to do that. Yeah. People will probably get sick of seeing Pupuza. That's a good one. Let them get sick. It's your thing. It's your thing. Yeah.

Although I can't do it right outside of where I'll be because it's a neighborhood like i don't have a view it's not tall buildings and but you don't have far to go you see well i'll have to figure out where i can go like if something's going on i can like find some open space where i can go and and photograph so i'm not shooting photographing through trees or anything like that so yeah but you know yeah first world problem right that's right yeah so anyway yeah

this is this is it this is the last of this show coming from brooklyn And Kensington base signing off. This is Kensington base signing off. Yeah. This is where it originated too. This show originated a block and a half away and in Tom's church basement. And it sounded like Tom's church basement. It wasn't very special acoustics. Very special acoustics. Yeah. It's two of us thinking like I knew what podcasting was like and, you know, the stick to itiveness of, of a couple of guys from Brooklyn.

Doing this. And yeah, so... I'm thinking that I don't know what to say about that at the moment, but I'm thinking that we need to talk about Brooklyn a little bit in the show. Maybe, maybe dig up some photographers who have been born here, but I don't have any, I don't have any agenda for the show. I just, this is the last one. I, like I said, I'm living, I'm not even, well, I'm saying living in boxes. I'm living out of boxes. Everything is going into boxes.

I haven't packed up my equipment yet. That's kind of the last thing. I think this computer is, is destined for packing tomorrow, I think. I got to get it packed before the weekend because Angie and her family are coming out here to help me move. So it's a, the, the, the Taylor clan is on their way. They'll be here Saturday. This is where we're, we're, we're recording this Wednesday. So I have a couple of days to put everything away in here to, to make room.

This is the room that you stayed in, my office. So I have to make it habitable in some way.

Again, but yeah, again, your air filters work fantastic. You have cats, I'm allergic to cats. I didn't have a problem at all. And the cats were crawling all over me. It was great. And so. Yeah, I'm going to fire up, I'm going to fire up one in here for a couple of days, but, uh, that does mean like my Mac and all the accoutrements and the monitors, I'm just going to have to start working whatever work I'm going to be doing in the next week.

Because I'm moving in a week, or the movers are coming in a week, I should say. Well, you know, I'll just use my laptop. But I've got this online game I play all the time. And I was like, can I play it on my laptop? I don't know. You're going to edit on your studio or are you going to edit on your laptop this show? Oh, this show. Good question. Hmm. Good question. I don't know. Depends on what I'm doing tomorrow morning.

I might be able to edit tomorrow morning and at least get it started and stuff. Mm-hmm. But, yeah, I might end up, I got to finish it before Friday. So, I got a few days before we publish, right? Because 30 days comes September, April, June, and November. Oh, on the 11th. Publish this on the 15th. Yeah. But I'm not going to have any time. Anyway, that's, that's all the making of the sausages, which people don't really need to know. Although they're getting to hear this.

Sorry. Yeah. So I have got to figure out, I've got enough camera bags that I'm going to hopefully be able to put all my camera stuff, cameras like lenses and camera bodies into actual bags. You know, but I have to figure out how much I can fit into a minivan. And, and my car, uh, and I've got cats obviously to take with me, us, we're shouldn't take with me, but we're all taking cats, but it's gonna be a little caravan going back from, from here. We're doing a two day drive because of my cats.

Not that I don't think I could make it. I mean, there's no way I can make it in one day and I'm not, I'm not a long distance driver. I mean, in the sense of I've never done it that much. So I don't, I'm wondering about how I'm curious how I'm going to be in that respect, but the cats, you know, we're going to have to stop someplace and stay overnight, make sure they're okay, rested, and then take off the next morning.

And Angie's children, grown up by the way, are going to be taking my car and they'll keep going. And then I think we're meeting up in Iowa City, which will be a first for me too.

Mm-hmm all these big western states and then and then the caravan heads off to uh heads off to, lincoln cool and with luck with with everything working out hopefully we'll be there on saturday or we'll be there friday night but the movers arrive saturday so and half my stuff goes or maybe two-thirds my stuff goes into storage we'll see and one-third goes into the house which is, going to make it a little crazy. So, Yeah, but it'll all settle. It should be fine. Yeah.

I mean, I, I have, I, I, it adventures. Yeah. I figured that. I'm also figuring that we'll still be on for the next episode.

I mean, I should, I should be able to have at least if I don't have this computer set up, I'll have a microphone and we can, we can, we can continue. We must continue. We must continue. The show must go on. The show must go on. So anyway. So I don't know. I want to hear what's, what's going on. I got a few things to, to, to yap about in terms of photography, but like I figure there's no agenda and people want to hear what's going on with my adventures. Let's hear what's going on with you.

What's going on with me? Let's see how much I went to the, well, a couple of photographic experiences here in the last couple of weekends. Let's hear them. Went to the Handhills Lake Stampede, not this past weekend, but the weekend with the, yeah, This is the one that the book that Mark and I created. So this was their 107th version of the rodeo. I did take my Fuji gear, but I concentrated on using the twin lens on that roller cord twin lens and shot two and a half rolls of film, 120 film.

So I won't have anything to look at or talk about for probably for a couple of weeks. I want to finish this third roll. I think my son and I are going to go do a photo walk somewhere, maybe next weekend, I don't know, whenever, and take three rolls to the lab and have them develop. And that takes a couple of weeks to get that over with. And then what else? Oh, I went to a wedding here this past Saturday, not knowing that I would be the ace photographer sort of semi-pro guy. Are you serious?

Yeah. Really? So. What had happened? It was a terrible misunderstanding from my point, my part, mostly. My wife asked me, because it's a co-worker, is the bride, Marcy's co-worker is the bride. And she asked if I would just take a few pictures or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, fine, I'll do that. I'll just bring my excess 20 and put the 23 on it. And I'll do a couple of like courtesy pictures, maybe be a little bit streety

and, you know, whatever, or just hand them, you know, a couple of JPEGs or whatever. Well, no. No? There was a pro that came and just did formals and a few things during the actual wedding service itself and then left and then... The emcee of the event. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on a second. I'm going to say this. They hired a photographer, a pro who did formal pictures, and then left after the formals?

Yes, left after the formals. And this would have been after the wedding, but before the reception slash dinner. So if you're picking your jaw up off the floor, you're wondering what have I gotten into kind of thing? I didn't wonder that until the emcee was saying, everyone go outside for the big group picture. And I'm thinking, oh, well, I'll go out there and whatever. And the pro will take the picture and I'll stand out. There's maybe 60 of us all together.

It was in a yacht club, which how does Calgary have a yacht club? We're landlocked, right? But there's a big reservoir. There's a big reservoir for the city, right? That dams up the river, right? And I didn't know. I learned that it's the highest, the highest yacht club in, in Canada or something. I think it's 3,300 feet above sea level. High, you mean not in distance and not in high, like everybody's smoking or something.

Well, you know, it is legal here. So, but it's 3,300 or 3,400 feet above sea level. It's the highest like kind of lake yacht club thing. So whatever. Lovely venue is perfect for this. But anyway, so this big group picture and then the groom's like, so are you ready?

Am I ready? what to take the group picture and i'm like i could be he says are you just finding out this now and i'm like yeah i'm like so how do we how do you want us arranged okay a reset okay now it's starting to sink in all right i gotta and there's there's a big area where the only place i could really stand there was a really strong shadow gashing across the frame oh my gosh because we're Getting close to sunset. It's like 6 p.m.

Like it's, well, we're three and a half hours from sunset actually. But the sun is low enough that there are these big trees and stuff in the kind of this area, you know, relatively close to the lake, but not really. But anyway, so I'm like, okay, well, we're going to have to make this work and, you know, fix it in post. I'm crossing my fingers. So I've got the 23. I can't get high enough or far enough back.

So I just went up on the deck of the yacht club and stood on the, like the railing where the seats are and just had everyone for him. And I was remembering that picture of the, the, the, the book Saskatchewan that I gave you when I came to visit. Remember he, the photographer solved the problem of a large group that wouldn't fit in the frame by putting everybody at an angle.

Right, right. Right. So it was sort of like that, but we kind of, my wife had the idea of putting sort of folks into kind of a semicircle. And it was an interesting composition and folks were getting kind of hard to wrangle. So I did my best to fire it off a few shots and the picture is okay. It was meant to be kind of informal anyway. And I couldn't get people into deeper ranks or anything to make it interesting.

There was a older gentleman who was very tall. He was like six foot six and he was in his seventies and he was in a green suit, like a hunter green suit.

And he decided to lie down in front of the group like burt reynolds and cosmo magazine right oh really you like and it's like it's like well we got to take this and it was informal i mean it was not no one was expecting the fancy formal whatever so i'm just trying to take in the energy and and people were you know trying to do their best and i didn't want to take too much of their time so i'm just trying to like make sure everyone's looking and there was you know a couple of toddlers, you know,

there, and we're waiting for them to look towards the camera and, fired off like 15 frames, bang, bang, bang, bang, just to see if I could get everybody to, you know, to sort of. Make it work. And I think it did. And it wasn't too hard to, uh, in post to, to correct. But anyway, so that was one thing. And then we're having dinner and, you know, there's, it was very, uh, the, the couple was older in their thirties and I think he's 40 or around 40 years old.

So there was not kind of, how do I put it? There wasn't a lot of pretense. It was like, it's very informal. There are no gifts or no, we're just here to celebrate and that's it. And so there was no real tension, you know, sometimes you get into a wedding and things are very, you know, have everyone seems to have some kind of expectations. They didn't. So in that way, it was kind of perfect for me because I'm,

I don't, I don't thrive or I don't, I just don't like it. And in those circumstances, one of the reasons why I gave up wedding photography 30 plus years ago, because I just can't, I just can't. So, so I'm just shooting from where I'm sitting in my banquet table and then the bride and groom kiss. And there's a mother and a son, you know, a teenage son looking at her mother closer into the, you know, closer to me in the frame and the adjoining table.

And there are these two kinds of love going on the same frame. I'm like, okay, now starting to feel it. And Japan helped a lot because it was like, you see something, get it. Right. So I took on this kind of street aesthetic and, and it's funny when people kind of get that you're the photographer, you get these suggestions.

Well, you know, sorry to interject, you know, one of the things I say in my, there's a quote from Mary Ellen Mark says, if you could shoot on the street, you can shoot anywhere. Yeah. Well, you shoot on the street, you can shoot anything. Yeah. And I take that as like, I use that. I don't know what she exactly meant by that. I mean, but I take it as, you know, to be able to shoot well on streets, you can then translate that to a lot of other kinds of photography.

And wedding seems to be like a perfect. Well, and I would say, because it's been so long since I shot a wedding, things just, people just arrange themselves in pleasing. Like, I think of people on the train platform on the street, right? They just arrange themselves in interesting compositions, right? Just like, there's these three people standing here, and then two here, and then four over here, and like, they're all like, they're all pleasingly arranged, right?

And the metaphor I used after about an hour and a half in was like, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Everyone is kind of standing, they're waiting to go to the bar or they're standing in a little, whatever, group to talk. And then they know they're being photographed and some are kind of embarrassed or don't really want their picture taken or whatever. And then I could just like, well, I can just shoot from the hip like usual and they have no idea. Yeah.

So it did, and ended up being quite satisfying. And I did stick to my street aesthetic. Yes, there were formal pictures, like the one lady, she's tapping me on the shoulder. You know, the sun's very beautiful. It's going to set in the forest fire smoke. It was a very, very orange sky and the sun was not too bright, right? It was obscured by the, by the smoke. So we should go out now and take pictures.

And I'm like, I'd already done the calculation. Like, well, the sun's going to set at 9, at 947 in the, you know, 947 PM. So I want to go out 15 or 20 minutes before the sun sets so that it's low enough in the sky that it can be in the frame. If I want it to be in the frame to do these kind of casual portraits. And I was thinking of it in color on her. So she, she didn't really like that. But anyway, I did go out and we did take some pictures. And so part of it was I have a 23 millimeter lens.

It is not a portrait lens. And I have the XS20 has this tiny half chiclet sized flash, flip up flash. That's all I had. Oh, it's got, it's got the flip up. It's got a flip up flash. Yeah. So it's like guide number eight or six. Not much. You might as well, you'd be better off using a lighter. Or, or my phone light, you know, if I, if I hadn't, you know what, if I hadn't. I might've thought of that eventually using the light on my phone to do the catch lights in the eyes.

So I did, I did have to be close enough for them to kind of fill the frame and like a, you know, middle of the chest up kind of heads together portrait with the sky in the background and the setting sun for the bride and groom image. And then there wasn't actually much post I had to do with those. I did darken the sky a little bit and then I changed the temperature of the sky down a little bit so that it looked like what I remembered the color being.

And there was enough ambient behind me and the sky was still, it was still like a neutral, you know, neutral white balance. And so I didn't have to adjust the white balance on the, on the image at all. Oh, okay. Beyond the masking that I did for the sky and I worked out pretty well. That you showed me the looked really nice. And I asked you when you put them on our discord group, I asked you if you had used flash and you did, you said you had that little flash on.

But the pictures didn't look flashed to me. You know, I could see the little light, I could see the little light in their eyes. So there was a little bit of a glint in there. That's all that flash can do. Yeah. But it, but it filled in a little bit. Like, yeah, just a little. Yeah. And it almost looks like it also almost looked like it was diffused light as well. Like that's why I asked you if there was a diffuser over the flash, something really nice about that.

I do have a Godox, like a big Godox flash and I've got that, it looks like a, it's a white rubber and it looks like a old style back door light, you know, like, like, like see on someone's backyard, you know, the big globe that fits over it, a dome kind of a thing.

You and i i would as a side note there was a guy i can't remember his name now was it the it was a gary fong you remember him no is that the guy he created i think that's the name of this guy who invent invented you know this domey kind of thing that you put on your speed light.

And he designed it in such a way that you would get the same kind of light when you rotated your camera vertically, and then you would rotate the strobe up back in sort of the opposite direction, but you would get the same kind of light. And, you know, I looked at this thing for a while. I have got a couple of them and they, they work very well. I can't remember how much this cost, but I was looking at it and I was like,

that, you know what that kind of looks like? It looks like a deli container. Yeah, no, I've seen them. I've seen ones like that. It's like a butter container. It's, it's the, the kind of semi opaque white plastic. Yeah. But I mean, it looked, I mean, it looks like an actual deli container. So, you know what I did once? I actually carved the bottom off of a deli container and. It's not very easy to do, and it's not very accurate because that plastic is kind of a harder plastic.

You're going to cut yourself. But I did it just for, you know. For blank and giggles, I'll say. Yeah. And I stuck it on there. The only thing I couldn't have was the round dome on top, right? But I just used the container lid. And I used one of those quart-size deli containers, not the pint-size. So it was kind of tall and it looked really, you know, I don't know what's the word.

Frankenstein, but I'm thinking more like, what's the word? I can't come, I can't get to think of, there's a really like, wonky is the word maybe. Convoluted. There's a little bit more skeevy name. There's another skeevy word. Rube Goldberg. No, I mean like, I want to not say skanky or something like that, but it looked really janky. Janky. Janky. Okay, janky. Janky. Not skanky. Sorry. Oh no. All right. Anyway, but I took a shot with it and it was the same kind of light.

Now, of course, a lot of the light gets bounced backwards as well. But, you know, as a, as a diffuser, you know, in a pinch, if you have a speed light and you don't have a diffuser, you know, go find a, you know, go find a deli container. And this is why you should carry with you a, you know, a pocket knife all the time or put it in your bag because like a Swiss army knife, the jack of all trades kind of thing.

Cut that bottom off and, you know, glue it on or whatever you have to do to the flash and you'll get a really nice diffused light. And it's, and it doesn't have any color shift to it. Anyway, sorry, I wanted to. No, that's fine. Throw that in there. It's a pro, that's a pro tip by the way.

But anyway, so, and I had my wife and we were talking over dinner tonight about, you know, you, you know, cause I was kind of deflated and whatever, angry about the whole experience of kind of being roped into doing this wedding or whatever. And they're fine. They're lovely people. Like I'd be happy to do it for them. It was just the way it was presented to me. It was not, it was not the greatest. So. Oh yeah. Didn't you know? You're a photographer? Yeah. I'm just kidding.

So I just did my thing. But you think to yourself, like, what if I didn't bring my camera with me? Well, then I'd be using the phone. And we would have been having this discussion. It would have been something else. Okay. All right. Yeah, I got some really interesting pictures. And so now it's sort of like, and I'm not putting, when I sent the link to the album to the bride, I said, please don't advertise this. Send this to as many friends as you want for, you know, for your own.

And yeah, you're happy to share it on social media and stuff, but I'm just tell anyone who might be interested, I don't shoot weddings. I just, I don't.

This was fun, but no. I have a lot of respect for uh photographers who shoot weddings i mean i've done a handful and i i it is not my it is not my cup of tea at all although like i think what you're saying is that there's some end results when I look at them, especially if I'm, if I've done kind of what you did, like on the dance floor or something like that, like I agree, it all presents itself.

And even, even like during the ceremony and stuff, if I was done some really interesting takes on it, the pictures end up being personally satisfying. I look at them like, oh, that's, that's actually a really nice photograph, you know?

Yeah. There's a formal aspect to it that translates really well to the arty part of it yeah yeah definitely but to have that responsibility no not not these days no way uh and you hear all the the nightmares on petapixel and f stoppers or whatever stories about photographers being sued by this that and the other thing or things that just go wrong and it's just like and and those are events that you know are very important to some people

you know and and you can't make it up and there's none you know there's no reshoots and stuff like that and yeah no I'm not doing that. I'm not going to be roped into it. I prefer to be the, the second or third shooter, you know, kind of thing. I always thought about maybe starting up, you know, you could start up a wedding company where the, the owner, the, like me would be the third shooter.

And the other people would be the ones, but like my work would be the stuff that I would go in there with my phone and shoot with Hipstamatic, you know? And those are the pictures that like, you're going to get these pictures. You're going to get the formal pictures because these guys are going to take care of their formal pictures. I ain't doing that. You're going to get the good stuff. And then that's what you hire me for. You hire me for the, for all the stuff that I can do with my phone.

I would probably photograph with my phone because that way I would just look like another, you know, another guest. So I wouldn't get that kind of, you know, staged kind of look or something like that. I would just do stuff very informally. But even that, eh, you know. Yeah. Well, I was thinking when I was like kind of revving up the creativity, okay, what exactly am I going to do? I was thinking of my influences. One was Steve Mullins, who was the guy who was doing the documentary style black

and white photography. He and Neil James do the Fuji cast, which I enjoy a great deal. And Steve just, he just retired. Is it Steve? No, it's not Steve. Oh, sorry. Mullins. What's it? Mr. Mullins. I'm sorry. Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, Kevin and Steve, the two guys on the basketball team. I'm sorry. So Kevin, Kevin and Neil. Thank you. Thanks for correcting me. I think. Yes. Yeah. There you go. Maybe I knew a Steve Mullins growing up. It sounds familiar.

Anyway. So he does this wonderful documentary style. His is very sharp though. Like his images are very kind of formal, black and white, wonderful pictures taken mostly with the X-100. And if I remember correctly. So there was that, and then there were those pictures of your old wedding from your friend that you were showing me the pictures of from Mel. Yeah. And there was that kind of open, informal aspect that I really love about those, of a time, those pictures.

And then I also knew that they wanted something that was going to be sort of formal, like the sunset pictures and so on. And so I could just bring it a little bit there and do the flash calculations, all that kind of stuff.

So I had, I didn't feel, and it's funny because as I was doing a little bit of chimping and doing some adjustments and turning, you know, the dynamic range off and making these little adjustments as the evening went on, that sort of like, this is kind of the perfect venue for the kind of what I had in my, I eventually had in mind. And, and I'm thankful that I had, you know, to just about two weeks and, in, in Japan and the stampede before, which was very slowed down and twin lens.

And I'm trying to shoot action on the twin lens of barrel racing, which is where a ladder, a horse running at full gallop, going the wrong way. You know, like it was this whole kind of having to bring it, you know, trying to, and we'll see when we get there, when I get the negatives back, we'll see. What exactly what I caught, but there was that whole kind of, that stuff was still ringing in my ears when I started doing this wedding. And so I felt like I did.

Did what I could do and I feel satisfied about the results. So the overall experience, even though the way up and down of being talked, like, you know. Yeah. Like in the end, you look back and you're like, oh, I'm glad you did it. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I'm proud of being able to squeeze out what I could without all the equipment that I would normally do to cover a wedding, which my camera bag has everything I would need to cover a wedding. Not that I would, but I could.

Right. But how did the, how did the, how success 20 workout good a lot of focus is much better in lower light than my my xc3s like way better really and the 23 as a format i mean you got 23 is my jam right so that i have no problem you know i know it's sharp enough and i knew there were going to be some pictures i was going to crop like there's a and it doesn't distort facial features that much no it's not that bad a little bit if you're on the very edge of the frame yeah there's

one picture i've got a group people dancing and the one woman or she's kind of stretched a little bit. She's in the very corner of the frame. Yeah. But it's, it's a reasonable focal length for that, you know? Yeah. So. And the venue wasn't too small. Like I felt like I needed wider. There was room to back up if I needed to back up.

And, you know, actually curious, would you have thought about or tried the feature in the camera to do a panoramic shot of the, uh, of the, the group shot, like, I guess it's kind of a wonky, yeah. Yeah. Like, uh, it's kind of a wonky thing, but, but I know we can do it. I mean, I, I'm assuming that the newer cameras are slightly better at doing that, but I mean, you can't do it with the S X X S X X S 20 because all Fugees have that capability, right?

Well, if it's the scan, like the pan and scan kind of, I don't know, cause the crowd or the group was very dynamic. They're moving a lot. And they're moving. Yeah. Yeah. So I could letterbox the frame that I did get. I see. And everyone fit in fairly well. I mean, it was a little tight on either side. I would actually, I would not have thought of that. I'm trying to think of what other features on the camera.

They'd have to stand. So otherwise you get someone who's like, you know, their face is over here and then their face is over there. Yeah. And you don't notice it. And little ones climbing over their parents, like it would have. It looked like caterpillars after a while, right? Or dachshunds and their bodies are stretched across the frame. Yeah. All right. Well, that, okay. Nice that you were able to roll with it.

And you think you got any pictures that you would want to keep like in a portfolio, like one or two, not to say that you're a wedding photographer, but just they're nice shots kind of thing. Yeah. Or just, you know. Yeah, I, I, I, there's some, personally in a portfolio, I don't know, it'd be public, I'd make them public.

I mean, I, you know, we could use one or two of them for, for show notes or whatever, if you want, but I, I don't know, I think a couple, there's, there's a picture of a young woman, a teenage girl and her mother standing in line waiting for the bar and the sunset light is coming through the window and kind of black. on them. And the young woman is in smaller in the background and she's lit fairly strongly. And then the mom, she has a bit of catch light, like ambient light on her hair.

And then she's lit a little bit less than her daughter. And it descends into darkness, like self vignetting kind of combination, man, that just jumped out at me. I got to get that. And that's more art than, And then a formal, you know, combination of street and art kind of thing that it was like a formal, like a painter's lighting kind of thing.

Okay, we're back. And for those of you who want to know how the sausages are made, we use this, we use this app called Squadcast and it literally just crashed on both of us. And yeah, we're right, but right in the middle, hopefully it's like right in the, you were done with your stories. I was done. I was just, I was just, you know, then this happened and that happened. So, yeah. Okay. So let's wedding photography. Yeah. Not your thing, but you're happy with what you got. I was happy with what I

got. It was, if I had to do it, that would have been, that was the perfect environment to do it. Yeah. All right. Cool. Yeah. Well, yeah. So a couple of things I wanted to say, well, I, you know, to go back into the gear thing, right? I saw that the Fuji's coming out with, or it was probably coming out with their new XE5. Is that the right? Yeah. Yeah. And I, it looks like it's priced pretty high. Uh, I didn't see. I didn't see. Yeah. Yeah.

It was, it was enough that I looked at it. I was like, Ooh, I wouldn't mind that. I was like, probably not $1,700. That's probably including the tariffs, at least on our end.

I don't know about you guys, but, but, and I heard news that, that Fuji was moving some of their manufacturing back to Japan because of the tariffs being less than the, the, the china tariffs so i don't know if that's if that's what the price was i'm seeing but i would i would wonder if that you guys in canada would have that same price and even if that is the price i mean so far the thing hasn't come out yet but yeah but the rumors lately have been pretty you know about things

have been pretty accurate so yeah i don't know but is that something that you're well you're considering 40 megapixel and it's got a flip out display i don't know some talk about that it has yeah it has a evf electronic viewfinder yeah so you know does this mean i have to buy new lenses to you know work with the 40 40 megapixel sensor i don't know i'll have to feel it in my hand and maybe you know maybe sell some of my gear yeah i don't need two xc3s if you know i'm gonna two xc3s and xc5

maybe i'll have demote one of my xc3s to the second one to put the wide angle on and then, uh. Have an XC5 as my main shooter. We'll see. I don't know. And they said that it might have image stabilization in it, I think. Oh, that would be interesting. But. Yeah, I don't know if that's the case. I mean, I don't know if that's real because it would make the camera a little bit thicker in size, but yeah, it seems like, it seems like a lot of the Fuji cameras that come out with the

40 megapixel sensor seems to need to have the, the image stabilization. Right. And so, well, maybe not. Hang on a second. Does the XT five, sorry, we're, we're, excuse us here. We're, we're, we're a Fuji-ing out a little bit for those of you, we're not meaning to like exclude everybody out here, but you know, we're both Fuji people, right? And so what the heck? But I don't know if the X-T5 has got, if it's got image stabilization off the check.

So, but I was thinking all the 40 megapixel sensors might have to have that just because of the bigger sensors. So that would mean that the X-T5's body will have to be a little thicker just because it would have to be able to hold that. Anyway. Okay. Sorry. We're geeking out. All good. Yeah. But I am waiting. I, like I said, I put the order in for that new half frame Fuji camera and I don't care how long it takes. Like it's, it's fine that it's, I haven't gotten it yet.

And I haven't gotten an indication that it's even, you know, in the system or shipping. So it will be like some surprise that we'll get like in six months or something, you know, whatever. But I did my photographic in a way, my photographic experiences since our last show were using my Polaroid cameras a lot more. And in fact, I bought five packs of film for the trip from here to Nebraska. I'm not sure how much of that will be practically I'll use, but I also have

my Instax camera. So I think it's going to be an all instant, maybe not all, but instant photography road trip. And we'll see how that goes. I mean, but I want to do that. I figure, again, the artifactiness of it and the time that it was. In fact, I did, I went and visited my wife's grave at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and I brought my Polaroid camera, my higher-end one, the, I can't remember the name of it now, but it was their higher-end one that is.

I-4, ID-4, something like that. I can't remember. All of a sudden, it's sitting on the shelf behind me. I'm not going to get up and look at it. And I did a, I did a selfie of it just to sort of put myself in the place. And the picture that I shot with it, hang on. I don't know if I can show it to you. It's in this mix, but you know, because it's essentially a large format camera, right? Or I mean, I'm going to say large format. It's like a medium format camera because

the, the image size is, I don't know. What is it? Three inches by three inches. Three, three by three. Yeah. So it, I don't know if you can be able to see this on, I don't know if it's blurred out. Oh yeah, no, it's really, you're really separated from the background. It's great. Yeah. So it is the first time I've ever seen a Polaroid do that much separation and it's not, it almost looks fake.

It almost looks like I blurred the background out using Photoshop or something like that, but it's not, it's optical. And I thought, okay, well that's really cool that on a Polaroid it can get a shot like that, but that's under bright conditions. And it was outdoors it couldn't be brighter i don't i had my polarizing filter sorry my variable neutral density filter on it to because the film is speed is what 640 i think right and.

The the minimum aperture on that is f8 and so that actually throws things for loop and i think the shutter i don't know the highest shutter speed so there are some factors in there that make it a little bit difficult but i kind of like that i kind of like that there was this this there's a bit of manual photography involved in that, trying to figure out stuff.

But again, you know, I, I, I dig instant pictures while, like I said, while I've been packing, I've been finding a lot of old pictures and a lot of my first pictures were Polaroid pictures where they were color, color peel away shots. And I did watch, I don't know if it was between our shows, but I did watch this documentary.

It was about the Polaroid. did we talk about that show I don't know if we did but I watched it too I watched our, closest PBS station is in Spokane, Washington yeah it's on PBS yeah American Masters I don't know how long it's going to be on yeah I don't know how long it's going to be on YouTube because I watched it on YouTube, if it is still on there I'll put a link to it but I would suggest anybody into photography watch this watch this documentary about what's his name Edwin Land,

Edwin Land yeah Yeah. There's, there's a lot of parallels to like people that, you know, now there's, you could just tell as I was watching that, that, you know, Steve Jobs probably idolized him in some way, you know, cause he certainly patterned himself after that. But the, the engineering behind Polaroid and, but what really I found intriguing, what was great about that documentary were the actual photographs that they were showing.

They they were spectacular and they had given cameras to a lot of the employees because they were going around testing the films and trying to make sure they had the like you know how could they improve and so you know some of the top engineers were walking around with cameras and taking self-portraits or stuff like that and they're fantastic i don't know what you thought about it oh i thought the same thing when you were talking about when

we were just talking about that picture you took that selfie that you took in the separation of the background well imagine those original model 95s that had the bellows on them. When you focus those, it's essentially a view camera. You've got like a field camera. It's huge. And they're what? Three and a quarter by four and a half or something? The original. The Prince? The Prince, yeah. And then, oh, yeah. Would have loved to have lived in that era and hopefully been able to afford

Polaroid film. Yeah, that's true. And they were so good. They were really good. And I think what is always cool is that the people were only testing it. I mean, I don't know how much creativity they were putting in when they were testing it, but when you look back at these pictures, like you look at them and I'm thinking like these, these people knew what they were like, they knew how to take photographs. And it was just something really nice about it. So anyway, watch this if you can see it.

What's the show called? American Masters. Yeah. American Masters. It was American Masters? Yeah. They did a thing on Winogrand three or four years ago, too, which is one of my favorite documentaries about a photographer. I might have seen that. Anyway, it's, it anyway, so I think that's going to be one of my, one of my things that I do when I get there. I don't know how I leverage instant photography into some business that I can do there, but I think I'll do that.

And one of the things I have also is Polaroid has got a printer, which uses the Polaroid film. And essentially, you take a picture from your phone and you put it on top and it brightens up the phone and then records the image onto Polaroid film. So I've done a few of those. And that's not, I would say, I don't know if it's cheating. Maybe it is because you're, maybe it's not. I don't know.

It's actually an interesting thing to think about because I'm taking a picture from my phone and then creating a Polaroid of it. So the artifact is of the moment that I'm doing that. But the picture could have been from any time period. But that being said, it's still a cool object. Like Polaroid has been coming out with all these different bordered colored films, and they're actually kind of hard to find because their website seems to be like they're out of stock on everything.

So I was shooting this actual, I think this film was expired by two years. And I've had it in my fridge, but it's got these different color borders, but they're really nice. And then if you put the right picture on it, it itself makes a nice object. So as a printer, to take that and make objects and then either give them away or sell them or use them as part of your, you know.

Repertoire of stuff that you are able to offer to somebody, it seems like, I don't know, it seemed pretty cool, you know? And I would bet maybe a lot of people who are not aficionados of instant photography may not care too much about the artifactiness that the picture ought to be taken into. The time, I mean, the print should be made from the time that it was taken, you know, as a record of the moment.

But if you have an image that's printed on Polaroid film, so it's got all the, you know, the bells and whistles of a piece of Polaroid paper or whatever you want to call it, Polaroid print. So, but I was surprised at how good this printer is. I mean, it's so weird because you put the phone on top of it and, you know, it's got to line up all these dots and put it on there. And then it, then it brightens up the photograph, brightens up the screen automatically so that it exposes the film quietly.

And then it spits it out and, and you do the same thing. You hide it in something dark because it needs like 10 minutes to process. And the thing is really nice is it comes out really sharp. So, but just don't pass them off as like Polaroids that you took with a Polaroid camera, you know?

So, but anyway, I was saying that during the week, this is not directly photography related, But my friend hired me to, we did a shoot out in Scarsdale, New York, which is just upstate a little, he's upstate, you know, it's, it's like an hour's drive from the city. Right. So it's, it's still, it's a commuter distance and she does these movies, documentaries with the Scarsdale Historical Society.

So she's, she knows, she was, she was brought up there and she knows everything about the history of that. But it's really interesting history into itself, like, you know, the, the Gilded Age time period and like all the stuff that the industrial stuff that happened there and the change over and stuff like that. But I was using my Fuji cameras as, as video cameras and they, you know, I don't know if anybody is thinking about getting video cameras or Fuji cameras and like that.

And again, we're, you know, I'm sorry, we're Fuji bias here. That being said. They are really, really good video cameras. Yeah.

You know, and I was shooting with, what was I shooting with? I was shooting with, have you heard of the Atomos Ninja 5? Yeah, the display, yeah. Display, but it also has a recorder on it, you know? And so you can record directly onto it. So I was using my X, what is it? The X-H2S as my main camera. But I was also using my XM5, right? Yeah, XM5 as a secondary camera. That was a secondary camera. And I want to put thumbs up for that.

If anybody wants to get into the Fuji ecosystem, the XM5 is a very inexpensive camera to get into the system. And it performed splendidly. It doesn't have optical stabilization. Sorry, it doesn't have stabilization. It's got digital stabilization on it. So if you're trying to do handheld shots with it, it's a little weird, but it, it's got the same little screws in the back for putting a fan on.

So if you need to cool the sensor, you can actually use the same fan as its bigger brother camera, or even the, I know the XS20 has those two as well. It's got that little thing in the back for the fan. So these two cameras, the, the, the, the kit that I had was relatively small and the XM five. XM five, sorry. I get really put these numbers. XM five also has the ability to feed out to a recorder.

So you can actually put you can take this little camera and you could you could mock it up to looking like this rig that looks like it would be professional this monitor on top and then record off in you know i don't think it does raw footage but anyway that being said i think the the fuji cameras tend to be a really nice option for hybrid shooters you know if you're going to be doing, photography and video certainly really good at photography but i really like

actually one of the of things she hires me for because she likes the Fuji look because often I will, I don't photograph, I don't film in raw, right? This is just, I mean, you can photograph in, sorry, you can film in raw when it's going out to a, or in log also, you can, when you're going out to a, I mean, you can, F-log or something like that. And she does not want to do a lot of post-processing color-wise, right? And so I set up a film simulation.

And again, you know, it does limit you in terms of doing some post-production and stuff. And she's had other camera operators give her film video to her in log. And she's got to do all the coloring herself. Grading, yeah. Yeah, but it adds to her workflow. low. And the thing that she likes about the Fuji is, you know, I don't know how many film simulations we've got now, but I'm picking, shoot, I can't remember what I was using.

Riala Ace, was that it? And it's a nice balanced film and I'm tweaking a little bit of the stuff behind the scenes. I'm making it a little bit flatter so I can pick up some more shadow detail and some highlight detail. And I figure she can just crunch it down with contrast, right?

If she needs to, but she doesn't have to add any kind of coloration to it or something like that and again we're just doing sort of a documentary work this may not be perfect for everything right but but it's a nice workflow because i just give her these files and then she's like she's just putting it together then she doesn't have to worry about and but the cameras matched really nicely it was nice to see two cameras that were they they have different sensors

but the colors were matching really nicely so anyway that was my that's my my photographic thing and the other thing I'm taking pictures of is all my boxes of stuff. Like every time I pack a box, I have to take a picture of it. So I've got a record of it, but I. Basically, I'm just wrapping up stuff. Stuff is going into, into bins and I'm trying to figure out what cameras to leave out other than the Polaroids. Like I probably will have my, I'm thinking my X100 will be, you know,

a camera that I bring on the trip with me that I don't box up or something like that. Right. So that I just have a couple of digital things with me or maybe just one and, you know, when it's appropriate to record. But I am thinking about what it is going to be like to be on the other end. What, uh, what, what kind of work I'm going to do when I get there, you know? And I do have a fantasy of firing up my four by five camera again.

I don't know how much the film is for four by five. It's probably a couple few bucks per sheet. Cheaper than eight by 10. You think, thanks a lot. Yeah. Eight by 10 field camera. You're kind of, oh, well. An eight by 10 field camera. Yeah, I couldn't even, the lens for that would just be too much. 210 millimeters. Sure. We'll start there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know what I've got. I've got a Toyo field camera here. I mean, not field camera, a Toyo 4x5. Rail. And I'm not, huh? On the rail.

I think it's on a rail. Yeah, it must be. And I think there's something wonky about the lens, but it's been sitting there in a box for, I don't know how many years. And I bought it off of a friend, but I did, I probably mentioned this from Lomography, I bought the Instax back for the four by five cameras. And I think I could use it on the, on that four by five camera too, because it's got the same kind of locking mechanism.

So I think when I'm going to get there, I'm going to, I'm going to kind of investigate larger format. Stuff, whether it's with film. And again, of course I'm now picking to move out to the Midwest to play with film because here in New York, I could get film developed, you know, probably, probably not that far away. And like, oh yeah.

So I moved to the middle of the country and then suddenly I want to get involved with film and like, there's probably, why don't I actually, I don't know, I don't know if there's a place in, in, I mean, maybe, maybe I'll get lucky there's a place in Nebraska, but anybody knows about a place in Nebraska that I can develop film.

Let me know. I'm sure I can just Google it, but I want to engage you guys.

You guys do the work for me but but crowdsource and answer crowdsource and yeah i i used to i used to like shooting with four by five when i was doing it in school and stuff like that and i got really used to the swings and tilts and the upside downness of stuff and and putting that you know the curtain over you know the yeah whatever over the tarp what do we call it shroud overhead shroud loud yeah and then and then pinching it too so that like pinching it so that the bottom the light from

the underneath you doesn't come through so it really it pretty looks it looks pretty cool but i thought like boy i could set myself up and look like a real old time photographer there people like what are you doing it's like i'm using a camera you know so i don't know i think i'll play with it but uh we'll see and i'm also thinking more medium format stuff too while i'm there so Actually, I'm wondering if I might.

I mean, yes, I have so many cameras because I don't sell them and I'm thinking I should probably start getting rid of some of the smaller cameras when I get there. So if anybody's interested in Fuji cameras, let me know. I'll see what we got, but I'm not getting rid of my X100. Street photography is not a thing. So, uh, what else is I going to say about that? I cannot remember. I think we're done. I think I'm done. I think there was one more thing I wanted to mention about camp, my, my stuff.

And I can't remember it, but anyway, yeah, we'll pick this up when I get back from, I've been when I, uh, I mean, I mean, actually I'm surprised. I didn't hear any cars or sirens. Did you hear? Nope. Nope. It's like it chooses the last night for, there was one woman with his Mr. Softy driving around and I muted it, but he was far away, but I haven't heard any like loud. Of course, once I say that, it'll happen. I don't know, loud motorcycles or cars or sirens going by during this.

We're close to a little four-way stop intersection here, and there's, it gets pretty noisy, especially time this year. I've never heard anything. I have never heard anything on your end. I've only heard the water coming in from the ceiling. Twelve. Yeah. Something. But, yeah, I'm going to have to, I don't know. This is going to be a whole, this is going to be a whole new adventure.

I think it'll be great. Right now, I'm just concerned. yeah right now i'm just concerned with getting everything in boxes at this point i'm really just shoving stuff into ziploc bags putting some bubble wrap around it closing it up and saying, office on it or or storage see on the other side yeah i'll figure out what's on there but yeah it's it is packing is something that i'm going to say is not a fun thing i not recommend it, not recommend it.

Don't do it too much. You really get, you really get to see how much stuff that is important and how much stuff isn't. I'm like, what has been sitting on shelves for a long time that, that has so much dust on it? They're like, well, if it's got that much dust on it, it means I haven't used it in a while. It's like, do I really need it anymore?

So yeah, it's, it really is a observation of one's life in terms of having to pick things up and figuring out what you want to keep and what you want to move and where you have to, you know, what's important to have near me and what's not important to have near me, you know? Yeah. And like I said, I've found a lot, I've been finding a lot of old pictures and I'm really going to, from your suggestion from the last episode was, was it the last one we were talking about or was it a previous one?

I'm taking the old pictures and doing something with them. Oh yeah. All these unknown photographs and doing something with them. So yeah. Yeah. And just to finish up, I've got one final class in a couple days at the Brooklyn Public Library, and it's the photo journaling class of all classes. And I didn't cancel it because I thought it's only a two-hour class and it shouldn't affect me too much in terms of my, you know, getting stuff done.

But I thought it was a nice class to finish up with. So, you know, it's getting people involved with pens and gluing pictures into books and hopefully being very hands-on and stuff like that. And that would be a kind of class I hope I could do when I get out to Lincoln. So we'll see. With that being said, let's wrap it up from Brooklyn. Oh, wait, didn't we want to, we don't even have time. We've been talking for how long now?

We started, I looked up all these photographers who are originally from Brooklyn. And I don't know if we have time to talk about it, but should we just, we can do a retrospective maybe. We'll look up famous photographers from Lincoln and compare and contrast. Maybe we'll do that for the next episode, right? Yeah. Yeah, because we're on time already, I think, so. Yeah.

Yeah, well, one thing that I want to do is find out, let me just see this for a second, and I just need to copy and paste something so we can read it. But we've got to figure out where we are on the interwebs and internets and stuff. I got mine ready to go, so. I just go ahead. Well, where are we? You can find me on Vero, Twitter, and Blue Sky at WRosinPhoto. On Instagram, I'm at WardRosinFineArt. On Facebook, I'm WardRosinPhoto.

My photography website is rosin.ca and that's where you can find me. So once Antonio has copied and pasted, where can we find you? Yeah, no, I'm good. I'm looking at it. Yeah, Blue Sky is amrosario, Instagram, amrosariophoto. My website, I'm probably going to change when I get there, but it's, I mean, I'll change the design of it, but it's amrosario.com. It's probably not working so well. And I'm going to put up new pictures and stuff. But why don't you subscribe to our Substack newsletter?

Hey, someone owes us an article. I know. We're waiting. How many episodes have we talked about this? Two paragraphs. What are you waiting for? Yeah. I thought you already had one written. Anyway. I have one, but it was that we were talking about one subject, and I've gone back to another subject. So we'll do that one. Yeah, okay. Well, anyway, yeah. Don't wait for more to subscribe to our Substack. Sorry if I missed your job. By the way, I thank everyone.

We're getting more subscriptions. Like, it's amazing. More subscribers. Yes. It seems like a few times a week we're picking up folks. Yeah, Substack is... It just seems like a great space for photographers. And I'm sure it's a great space for a lot of other people, for us as well. It's a nice, I don't know, it just feels very intimate and stuff. So, yeah, subscribe to our Substack newsletter at streetshots.substack.com. And if you like it, share the articles with other people.

We just want to get more people into our little ecosystem here that we kind of find. And I've got some ideas. Once I actually get to Nebraska, I think I've got some, I've got concepts of plants. So, sorry. And anyway, if you want to support the show also, you can support us by buying us a coffee at buymeacoffee.com slash Antonio Rosario. So, yeah, that's it. There's going to be signing off from Brooklyn. And the next stop is Lincoln, Nebraska.

Pretty much almost dead center of the United States. Or at least as dead center as I'm going to be. Cool. Cool no hot it's going to be hot there it's hot and humid and be careful of the chiggers.

Chiggers what is that they're little night like creatures that are in the ground in the long grass you go in and you're gonna check yourself before you go back into the house make sure you don't have anything attached to your to your skin so oh great and joyful yeah it's just a it's an occupational hazard out there. It's all good. It's fine. It's only, you know, nine months of the year. You know, it's fine. Only bugs, right? Yeah, exactly. What do they do, bite?

They bite, they attach, they suck blood. You know, they're like mites. They're, you know, they do what they do. They're like ticks? Ticks, yes. Mites and ticks, yes. And then it's an arachnid. Blood sucking. Yeah. A blood sucking arachnid. It's great. It sounds like a bad movie that, you know, based on a Robert Heinlein book. So anyway, okay. And on that note. I'll see you on, yeah, I'll see you on the other end of my trip. Wish us luck. Yeah, good luck, my friend. Enjoy the drive.

Thank you. I love American road trips. Just think. It's the best. Okay, well, actually, I'll be closer to you now. Yeah, you'll be in the time zone closer, right? You'll be in the central time zone. Yeah. Very cool. This is a big, long drive. But anyway, okay. All right, everybody. See you in a couple of weeks. And Ward, thanks for joining us. Always a pleasure. Excuse me. And everybody have a great night and see you in a couple of weeks.

So you're all packed up? You're all ready to step out the door? Don't say. Just laughing and laughing. You like to make fun of me, don't you? No, I'm just, it's a legitimate. I'm all packed up. I'm all packed up. Yeah. Everything's just peachy. Oh, so wonderful. Moving. You know what? Moving on my Yelp review. I give it one star. Do not recommend. I'd give it zero if I could. Yeah, I guess they won't let me review it with a zero. Yes, moving one star. Do not recommend.

Yeah. Packing, packed up. Oh, you're very funny. You're a regular comedian. A regular comedian over here. Am I all packed up? Boy. Yeah. Well, hmm. Yeah, well, let's see. Yeah.