Blog

  • 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!

  • November 2024 Adventure

    November 2024 Adventure

    The dynamic duo’s next road trip is scheduled for November 4, 2024, right after the wildly popular PhotoCon in Oklahoma City, OK.

    It’s been a long time since our last full-blown adventure in May 2023, which was based out of Las Vegas, NV, and found us traveling mainly through Nevada, Utah, and northern Arizona. Read about that trip on Vintage Tales – Second Adventure Trip May 2023

    Peep will be flying into Oklahoma City and we will head north after Dixie’s short recovery from presenting during the three-day photography convention. Check out the amazing Envoy BOO! events for Halloween and his program – Flash Fusion Portraits.

    While we have not mapped out a specific route yet and we don’t like to do that anyway, we hope to hit some interesting back roads in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas. Being flexible when traveling off the beaten path of the majority of people allows us to focus attention (and vintage lenses) on the places that really tug the heartstrings. It’s hard to say where those special places are until you are there in the middle of everything or nothing.

    In the meantime, during the planning and traveling stages, we will check the Vintage Tales blog comments, the Facebook page comments, and – maybe – the Instagram DMs. You can always send us an email (hello@forgottenmainstreet.com) as well with any great places we should visit, stop, or capture.

    Keep Shooting Vintage!

  • The Trip Back from Lawton, OK

    The Trip Back from Lawton, OK

    There are times when a good roadtrip can ease the pains of stress and help realign your senses into a focused view of life. I love to feel the wind in my hair, either by motorcycle or open car window, while listening to the hum of the asphalt chasing sunlight and the looking for the next discover around the bend. This afternoon was one of those times. I wanted to visit a couple near Lawton, Oklahoma to deliver a camera to borrow for their big trip to Japan. I guess, I really didn’t need to do it, but the idea of 90 miles on the highway was needed to recoup from the long week.

    Now if you know me, I quickly made the trip down working on phone calls and Voxer messages with the various groups I manage, while watching the sun descend from its apex. I knew the trip back to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma would have amazing light for whatever I discovered on the backroads. The diversity of opportunities in this great state never leave me disappointed except the desire for really a really tall mountain range similar to Colorado.

    Passing through the small towns off the main through fare of interstate I-44, I found an abundance of subjects that pulled my heart strings to point my camera towards. The camera of the day was my favorite daily carry, the Fujifilm X-Pro3 paired with various vintage Mamiya-Sekor SX lenses.

    One of the places I discovered was Cement, Oklahoma and the Buzzard’s Roost, both with ties to the famous outlaw Jessie James. I may need to come back again with more time to search for that hidden treasure so many are hunting. In the meantime, I will continue my walkabouts, solo photowalks and backroad adventures with my trusted camera discovering, capturing and sharing the treasures around Oklahoma.

    Visit the Forgotten Main Street Flickr Group and Instagram to see more images from this trip, along with other adventures.

  • Second Adventure Trip – May 2023

    Second Adventure Trip – May 2023

    Our second FMS trip started in Las Vega, Nevada with both of us flying into Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) on May 17, 2023. Peep arrived first and picked out a beautiful BMW X3 that worked flawlessly across all the different road types we encountered on the adventure.

    I feel that future expeditions will need some type of tracking device to save the routes, backroads and places we stopped right off the pavement. The next seven days were packed with nothing but exploring and photography, with a little bit of dreaming mixed in for good measure. We both would love being full time travel warriors discovering the hidden and forgotten treasures of this great landscape called home.

    We hit the ground running to get out of Las Vegas after fueling up at our favorite sandwich shop, Jimmy John’s. I believe we headed north but can’t recall exactly because we were caught up in conversation and during these trips, there is no wrong direction.

    While the routes we choose were not entirely random, we both agreed that any sway of feeling or pull of curiosity was completely valid or no turn was a wrong turn. The common thread of this trip, and others in the future, would be focused on enjoying our limited time together and celebrating whatever discoveries were right around the next turn. In between those twisted curves, we both wanted to visit Zion National Park, Bonneville Salt Flats and maybe a quick dash along Route 66 in Flagstaff, Arizona. It’s crazy to think, we choose to stay away from the popular tourist attractions including Grand Canyon National Park, but we did manage to clip it heading south on US 89A.

    One of the more important lessons unearthed after getting home, we didn’t discuss the places we missed… because we didn’t miss them because no turn was a wrong turn and no direction was the incorrect way. Well, unless the sun had set and we were rushing back to a good hotel in the few pockets of civilization. In fact, the majority of our time was spend in Nevada and Utah with three of those nights near St. George, Utah, that worked great as a basecamp. You would be surprised the amazing places reached from here in a day’s drive. We did manage to work our way in and out of Arizona along the way.

    We are not going to bored you with a turn by turn guide of this adventure, but instead we want to share our images of the places off the main roads that grabbed our attention, peaked our interest and enticed our hearts. We were all inclusive on the captures, from the beautiful sunset to the automotive rusty relics and discarded towns to amazing geographical oddities of the area.

    Be sure to follow our Instagram feed and our personal accounts so you don’t miss any of the goodness as we share over the next few months.

    FMS Instagram
    Peep’s Instagram
    Dixie’s Instagram

    If you have made it this far down the post, here is a little bonus. We are designing a book of our favorite images from this trip that will be available to order by the first week of November 2023, just in time for Bedford Camera & Video’s large conference PhotoCon. I hope you can attend and meet both of us in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

  • The Next Adventure

    The Next Adventure

    It’s time for another adventure on the open backroads of this wonderful county. Our new trip begins almost a year from the last, traveling from Atlanta, GA to Oklahoma City, OK. Peep continued without me, on a solo tour all the way back to Bellingham, WA.

    This FMS Tour will begin and end in Las Vegas, NV making a loop thought AZ, UT and NV. The goal will be to travel on the secondary roads to engage with the little seen areas and hit a few National Parks along the way. Peep and I will meet at the airport in Las Vegas on May 17, 2023, rent a capable vehicle and head out of town after a solid lunch. I’m hoping for Jimmy Johns, but I think Peep is wanting Panda Express. In any case, grabbing a few Bang energy drinks for the drive is high on the priority list before leaving Sin City in the rear view mirror.

    While the focus will be capturing images with vintage lenses, we had upgraded our kits to the Fujifilm GFX system with appropriate adapters for Mamiya 645, Pentax 6×7 and 35mm SLR lenses. We are very excited to put the system through it’s paces under real world scenarios.

    The exact route isn’t planned yet and most likely will be more of a general direction than a destination, so we can be open to last minute light chasing down dusty gravel roads.

    Be sure to follow our Instagram account @ForgottenMainStreet for updates along the way. If you have ideas of those off the beaten path must see to believe places, shoot us an email or DM on Instagram.

    We also just launched our new SWAG SHOP with shirts that let other understand your passion for vintage lenses.

    Screenshot
  • 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