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There’s something quietly therapeutic about wandering a small town neighborhood at midday, camera in hand, with no real agenda other than to see. That’s exactly what I did today with my trusted Olympus OMD E-M10 paired with a classic, vintage Pentax 50mm f/1.7 fully manual lens. (That's about a 100mm focal distance, at 35mm equivalence.)
When I go down the rabbit holes on photographers like Saul Leiter and Harry Gruyaert, and even Ernst Haas I find my self reaching for the longer focal lengths, hoping to create some nice layered compositions and compressed images.
The combination of using new and old feels like a compact time machine—a digital body with modern stabilization and a beautiful old lens that renders the world with a character that’s hard to replicate. Manual focus slows me down, but that’s the point. It forces me to engage, to pay attention to the way sunlight falls on a cracked sidewalk or how a window reflection mirrors a sagging telephone wire.
There’s a unique kind of beauty in the mundane: peeling paint, overgrown hedges, roof edges and the clouds above them. These everyday details can easily be overlooked, but through the lens, they feel significant. I found myself seeking reflections—window panes, puddles, or obscure shiny surfaces—and looking for moments where light interacted with texture in unexpected ways.
The midday sun, harsh as it might be, offered a certain starkness that helped bring these ordinary scenes to life.
Once back in the home, I edited every photo using a custom film recipe I built in VSCO Studio. My goal was to emulate the legendary look of Kodachrome—warm, punchy tones, rich contrast, and a timeless feel. To that, I added a healthy dose of grain, which I’ve come to embrace as a defining part of my style.
There’s something about that texture that softens the digital sharpness just enough to evoke nostalgia without feeling like a filter. For me, that grain isn’t just an effect—it’s emotion, memory, atmosphere.
If you're interested, here are the ingredients to my Kodachrome-ish-inspired recipe I built in VSCO Studio for my color snapshot. Keep in mind, I go heavier on the grain that most Kodachrome shooters would have. And of course, these settings are merely used as a base for this collection of colorful snapshots. Feel free to try it out, and adjust to your liking.
VSCO Preset: KC25 (based on Kodak Kodachome 25)
Exposure: 0.7
Contrast: 1.6
Sharpen: 1.7
Clarity: 1.2
Fade: 1
Grain: 8.4 (Size: 0, Color: 0)
Vignette: 0.6
This little midday project reminded me why I fell in love with photography in the first place. It’s not always about the banger landscapes or dramatic moments on the bustling city streets.
Rather, sometimes, it’s about letting the world come to you quietly, one reflective surface and sunlit shadow at a time.
Thanks for stopping by! —Greg
