Photography On Location: The Liquor Store

You know what kind of guy I am? I’m the kind of guy who spends an entire day and evening photographing a liquor store. And films himself doing it. And then posts that video to YouTube.

I came across a delightfully unmaintained liquor store in Santa Barbara County, California while I was on a walk one day. After taking some scouting pictures of this beautiful building using my Polaroid SX-70 and some instant film, I decided that the next time I was in the neighborhood, I’d bring my trusty Shen-Hao TFC 617-A 6×17 panoramic camera with me so I could do some real serious slow-and-steady-on-the-tripod kind of work. After all, this thing was begging for a panoramic composition (or two).

As great as this scene looked in the harsh light of midday, I knew almost instantly that I’d want to photograph it at dusk. You know that time of day where the sun has set and the streetlights have turned on, but it’s not completely dark yet? That’s what we in THE BIZ call “magic hour”, baby. It’s called “magic” for a reason. It’s where beautiful photos are born.

But because indecisiveness is my thing, I ended up photographing it 3 separate times anyway – in midday, dusk, and morning light. I wanted to see it on film under each type of lighting. I was right about dusk, though. The dusk shots ended up being my favorite (uh-oh, spoiler alert!).

Surprisingly, I haven’t taken many pictures on film at dusk. I’ve done more dusk shots than I care to count on digital, but not film. Kodak Portra has plenty of dynamic range to help me tackle the difficult lighting/metering of dusk, but I was still a little concerned I would screw it up. But – and again, spoiler alert – turns out I had nothing to fear because the exposures came out perfect.

Aw hell, I’m just going to say it…Hot damn I love how the dusk shots came out!

I spent much of the day leading up to dusk scouting my compositions. Dusk is a very tiny window of opportunity, so I wanted to nail down exactly where to put my tripod well in advance. I used a fantastic app on my iPhone called Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder along with an Aukey clip-on iPhone camera lens to help guide me. You should check both of these things out whether you’re a digital photographer, film photographer, or both. I find the app and lens combo invaluable.

Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder:
Aukey iPhone Lens:

Anywho…please enjoy the video. And thank you for watching!

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