Apartment Block

In Costa Mesa, California there stands a pair of matching high rise luxury apartment buildings. They're called the Essex Skyline I believe. They caught my eye one afternoon.

With me that day I had a Mamiya C330 twin lens reflex loaded with Kodak Tri-X film, and also my Kiev 4a, loaded with expired Fuji Sensia 100 ASA color slide film.

I took numerous shots of the buildings with both cameras before being asked to leave by a security official. (I guess I was trespassing.)

I took the above shot with the Kiev. I was shooting into the sun.

Since the Fuji film was expired I didn't really want to pay for E6 processing, so I developed the film myself in black & white chemicals. I used Rodinal and diluted it 1:100 so I could do a 60 minute "stand" development.

I think the grain and the tone give the image a 1950's Eastern Block look. (Like something you might have seen in East Berlin when the Wall was still up.)