002 // 98 Degrees, 10,000 Steps, and 3 Tacos
In the two years and change that we’ve lived in Tennessee, I haven’t gone up to Nashville to shoot street photos a single time… until a couple weeks ago.
There’s been some major life changes, and I’m still adjusting a couple years later. All good things, thankfully. When my pregnant wife and I moved down here in May 2023 from Brooklyn, it was more than the end of a chapter in our lives. We were done with the whole book, and it was time to start a new one altogether.
I had essentially walked away from my 14 year commercial photography career overnight. I actually still haven’t done a commercial shoot since we left NYC. I have since gone full time with my everyday carry business (NotoriousEDC), designing and selling pocket knives and related items. I do everything myself– from design, photography, shipping, customer service, and of course social media. That on top of trying to be a great dad and husband doesn’t leave me with a whole lot of time to walk around taking photos. But as I’ve began to realize, I need to take some more time for myself.
I reached out to my friend Aaron, who’s always awesome to hang with. He also happens to be a great photographer. Funny enough, we met on Instagram through our mutual pocket knife hobby years ago. “Let’s shoot some photos and eat some tacos.” So we accidentally picked the hottest day known to man, met up in the morning, and started walking. The real feel was about 100, and we drank as much water as we could. Aaron had his Nikon Zf, which I must admit is a pretty cool camera. Feels like a tank. I brought along the Fuji X100VI.
I’ve been a fan of Fuji’s digital stuff and their colors since my first go with the X100S in 2013 or so. They’ve continued to refine the series with each new version, and it’s just such a phenomenal camera. I need to do a long term YouTube review one day, which will mostly be positive. Every camera has quirks, but overall, I would say this is hands down my favorite camera of all time. The fun factor is off the charts, and that’s something a spec sheet just can’t show.
I decided to shoot with my X100VI for a few reasons:
83% - To keep things simple with a fixed lens
11% - To test the new SmallRig grip I got for it
6% - I’m not gunna front– a part of me thought having “X100VI” in a YouTube title wouldn’t hurt. I’m disgusted by that truth, but that’s 2025, baby. I mean I genuinely love the camera… so I’ll allow it.
I went with the Classic Chrome film sim the whole day, and I forgot to add grain in camera (I added it later in Capture One). I had it turned off because I haven’t been shooting my daughter with grain on lately. I don’t know what it is about Classic Chrome, but it just looks so good. I also had the white balance set to AWB Ambience Priority, which is something I’ve never done before. I also set the Blue to -5 in the WB Fine Tune to give that warm feel. Nostalgic Neg is my other favorite, but I stuck with just CC for the day, which is a surprise since I’m insane and feel the need to tweak everything all the time. I’m trying to let go a little bit and just let it rip lately, both in cameras and life in general.
The X100VI is just such a beast. The jump from 26mp to 40mp for the sensor is something I really didn’t care about at first, but now I find myself using the digital teleconverter feature to crop into “50mm” and “70mm”, and even though it’s not actually those focal lengths, it does the job on the fly and scratches the itch without having to crop in later. Bonus points because the RAW is uncropped if you shoot RAW + JPG (like God intended).
Another setting I’ve been messing with lately is dynamic range on 400%. This is super helpful for harsh conditions and backlit scenes because it just brings the highlights down a bunch so they’re not blown out. That combined with my Highlight setting at -1 gives a more protected and saturated highlight. It’s cool, I dig it for a lot of situations. Of course this is more for the straight out of camera JPGs, which I try to use as much as possible.
Shooting with a friend is a totally different experience on so many levels. There were times Aaron stopped to shoot something that I didn’t notice, and then I thought it was an awesome scene after giving it a closer look and seeing his LCD screen. We shot some overlap, and our styles are different enough that we actually got totally different vibes. It was a dope little experiment in retrospect. It was also nice to be a duo going through some of the sketchier areas. I probably would’ve been fine on my own, but the buddy system is always nice.
I need to take real portraits in addition to just candids in the future.
Aaron is so cool, he offered to shoot some video for me with my DJI Action 5 Pro so I could use it in a YouTube video. We ended up talking and just catching up for hours, and we only shot one clip that I used for a Reel showing off the SmallRig grip. It’s all good. Just chatting and not filming was worth it 100%.
While writing this and adding photos to the post, I realized how programmed I’ve become to shoot vertical for Instagram. I hate that. I miss shooting horizontal, and I’m going to start doing more of it.
After completing the 10,000 step mini tour of Nashville, I was ready to eat my hat. We headed off to Red Headed Stranger in East Nashville, and thankfully Aaron hasn’t turned down going there yet. We don’t get to hang out often, so I feel like I haven’t worn that place out on him (he’s likely eaten there a million times). It’s fantastic, although they don’t sell chips, which is an atrocity and I don’t even want to talk about it because I don’t want to get upset.
I went home thinking I probably got one or two good shots, and that would be plenty for a few hours in very harsh lighting. After I downloaded my card, I was very pleased that I shot a bunch of stuff that I felt good about, and that was the cherry on top of getting to hang out with a friend. The day was a great reminder to spend more time with friends and always have a camera in hand.
Currently listening to: “One Last Time” by Benjamin Tod ft. Sierra Ferrell
