Category: photography

  • The Element Cross Country Adventure

    The Element Cross Country Adventure

    The January 2025 trip was extra special for the FMS team as it had two purposes: vintage photography on the backroads and bringing the Element from Bellingham, WA, to Yukon, OK.

    The short story is simple, Peep built up an awesome adventure rig and sold it to Dixie. I flew to Peep’s hometown and we drove backroads back to Oklahoma through Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. We ventured around 2600 miles and even hit the last Blockbuster in Bend (OR) and a Buc-ees in Amarillo, (TX).

    We captured some amazing locations along the way and met wonderful people who shared their passions, like Jessie and Junior in Likely (CA), Joel with his father’s Galaxie 500 in Twentynine Palms (CA), and Daniel with a group of VW vans off CA62 near Danby Lake. A little further down that road, we ran into a French family, Bilou’s Family, that shipped their VW van over to Canada and working their way down to Panama.

    While on these explorations on the road, we do a lot of searching and looking at everything for great captures that inspire us and hope to encourage others to venture out, off the interstates to experience a slower pace and celebrate the little discoveries. When you seek, you will find and sometimes capture the ordinary that can be extraordinary, like the “Free Piano” just sitting alone off the busy road.

    This post just scratched a little of the surface from Dixie’s camera and Peep will be posting some of his favorites soon. In the meantime, follow us on Instagram, @ForgottenMainStreet, to see more dynamic captures with Fujifilm GFX cameras and vintage manual focus lenses.

    If you have questions or would like to collaborate on a vintage lens project, send us an email forgottenmainstreet@gmail.com to get it started. You can also sponsor a tank of gas on the next adventure!

    Thanks for following our photography passion project!

  • Happy New Year and Welcome 2023!

    Happy New Year and Welcome 2023!

    Welcome to the year 2023 and a belated Happy Holidays from the FMS Crew!

    While this post is a little late – we are already into the first week of the new year – we wanted to say Thank You for all the support we have received in this passion project.  We must say that traveling down the the vintage lens road has definitely created animated discussions on differences of quality, content and even the “feelings” of a photo.  It’s modified our view on the art and craft of photography as more than just a communication tool.  Joining the benefits of the Fujifilm platform with various vintage manual focus lenses has become more than an extension of our bodies; it has changed the vision of the moment into an art treasure.

    We can’t expect everyone to jump on the bandwagon of our new found discovery and love for vintage lenses, but we hope that everyone enters the discussion with an open mind and curious heart.  Finding the intrinsic value of capturing the world around us with older technology can remove the “clinical” nature of quality so the emotions and story of the moment shine through, straight into the emotional center of the viewer.  Over the next year, we plan to continue developing our skills, the film simulations we enjoy and sharing this art via our galleries.

    The website still needs some work on our guides to help others discover the same joy we have been celebrating these past 8 months.  And we are excited to plan more adventures together traveling the backroads finding the lost treasures of our wonderfully diverse country.

    So with these wishes for good cheer and prosperities, we hope you follow us here on the website and our social media posts. Be sure to share with your friends and begin your discussions on vintage lenses.

    Blue Decor by Peep with Olympus Zuiko 35mm f2
    Ornaments by Peep with Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1.4
  • Sunflowers Found

    Sunflowers Found

    This was a huge surprise for me.  It’s been so hot outside in Oklahoma, that I’m rushing from the comfort of home quickly into the a/c of the car.  While I have been “forced” to ride the motorcycle in this heat, enjoying the backyard hasn’t been on my short list of tasks.  Truth be told, I’m not crazy about the heat, so hanging around outside is mainly in early spring, fall and some winter days.

    So when I stepped outside to check on my littlest furry family member, Scarlett, because of this crazy heat, I was shocked to find sunflowers growing in the backyard.  Of course, when confronting my wife, Terri, about this new development, she simply said “I know, I’ve been watering them”.

    Apparently, these beautiful flowers started on their own, being scattered by the birds attacking the filled bird feeder.  While cleaning up the back porch, Terri noticed some of the seeds took root and seemed to be growing quite well.  She decided to help them along with daily water care but failed to let me know of the new tenants in our flower bed.  I’m still a little shocked and very excited.

    I never really thought about it much, but sunflowers are very popular in my home country of Spain and eating the tasty seeds filled many of the memories from my youth.  But I’ve never gave a thought about purposely planting sunflowers in my yard.  Well, that is now changing and Terri is onboard to get sunflowers in our front yard.

    In the meantime, I love using the sunflowers for testing the vintage lenses in my arsenal without having to travel a long distance.  These were taken with the Fujifilm X-Pro3 with either the Super Takumar 28mm f3.5 or Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 mounted on a a helicoid adapter.  I hope you enjoy them as much I as did.  I will post them to our Flickr Group page so you can see some of the metadata.