A few days ago, I flew down to Raleigh, North Carolina to do some film shooting of the recently rebooted Kodak Ektachrome 35mm film. While I was there, I went downtown and also shot some digital frames with my trusty D750 for another installment in this series. I will be doing a analog series post featuring those Ektachrome frames in the future, and I will also be doing another post featuring digital shots in neighboring Durham as well. Let's dig in.

In opposition to most of my travel trips, I limited the entire shoot to a 50mm focal length. This is mainly due to the weight of lugging my gear around in addition to two cameras as I walked all over the place.

Michael Neal

I liked the framing of this shot while I was in downtown Raleigh. The narrow split between the buildings adds depth to the composition, and the reflection of the clouds in the glass windows is a nice touch as well.

Michael Neal

The architecture in Raleigh is really interesting and lends itself to some good shots. I liked the coloring of the red brick here in addition to the tall building which fills the entire frame when shot at 50mm.

Michael Neal

I generally save my food posts for Instagram, however, I wanted to include this one because I liked the offset from the table lines to the box pitch. Additionally, the coloring of these chocolates (which were fantastic) lends itself to a great photo.

Michael Neal

This shot sort of messing with you due to distortion. I liked the complexity of the architecture, and generally, I wouldn't care for something so geometrically skew, however, I find interest in this particular frame of the lamp post in front of the courthouse when shot from below.

Michael Neal

Again, not something I would generally share apart from the Instagram feed, but I liked the extreme bokeh of this shot at f/1.8, and this gelato and macaroon combo makes for an interesting aesthetic.

Michael Neal

I really enjoy shots of deep alleys, and this shot was interesting to me because of the lighting. There's a lot of visual tone as the shot progresses from shadows to highlights.

Michael Neal

I liked the framing here because the very tip of the building just touches the top of the frame. I also think the shadows make interesting cuts across the building and windows in the foreground.

Michael Neal

I shot this with a fast shutter speed in order to freeze the motion of the water falling off the edge.

Michael Neal

One tip I like to employ is to stop down my aperture in order to produce the nice rays given by the sun. This shot was nice because the sun illuminates the side of the building and also adds depth to the tree as it shines through the leaves.

Raleigh was a really historically interesting place to visit, and I am very excited to see how the film shots turned out. Additionally, it offered a good mix of content to shoot — architecture, landscape, and street. I would recommend anyone looking to get out of this cold weather take a trip down there to shoot!