TexasGirl Photography

After talking about it for years, we finally went down to the San Antonio Missions, touring 4 out of 5 (we skipped the Alamo, having been there several times) in spite of the heat. If you wait for a cooler day in Texas, you’ll wait forever and never do anything! It was a wonderful experience. Each Mission has its own character and is unique, and I really appreciate the fact that they are all still active parishes within the Archdiocese of San Antonio.

Something else I appreciated during this excursion was finally getting my Spectra camera working again. I’ve had problems with it not ejecting photographs ever since I purchased it that no amount of YouTube videos have been able to solve. This is especially frustrating since the film is discontinued; it really pains me to think that I will have to waste the packs I’ve been hoarding!

Taking the advice to “try a different pack of film” seems to have sorted out the issue for now. This doesn’t bode well for my being able to use up the rest of the film, but considering I want to use what little I have on places that are really special, being able to make some Spectra images at the Missions made me very happy!

As usual, I had a time trying to “scan” these Polaroids. I find that more often than not a flatbed scanner doesn’t yield results that look anything like the print, but likewise I have a lot of difficulty making the scanner app on my phone yield a decent result. Getting the lighting just right is something I have yet to master. What you’re seeing here was all “scanned” with my phone, and they aren’t perfect but hey perfection is overrated anyway, right?

At dinner later on our waiter told us he lives near one of the Missions (when I thanked him for filling my water glass yet again and explained my thirst), then elaborated on the amount of paranormal activity taking place in his house. His story put an interesting extra spin on the day! When the Missions were built, the area was of course completely different. A lot happened on that land, a lot of water has gone under time’s bridge since then; every set of decisions carries weight, and maybe sometimes that weight takes a while to settle.

The final photograph below is one of the Espada Aquaduct . We didn’t expect to see this on our journey, and it was a beautiful, interesting place! According to the park service website it’s the oldest Spanish aqueduct in the US; I am grateful to see it preserved as a landmark. Here is another link about it.

Thank you for taking a look at these photos! Eventually I will have some Hasselblad images to share (assuming I don’t accidentally ruin them in development, which is always a possibility).