Daily Photo Dose

Continuing my experiment with CineStill 800T and the Pentax 67, I spent the evening wandering Lower Broadway in downtown Nashville to see just how far I could push handheld medium format photography after dark. With the camera braced tightly against my shoulder and every available wall serving as a makeshift tripod, each exposure demanded patience and steady hands. The combination of the Pentax 67 and CineStill 800T rewarded the effort, preserving the glow of Broadway’s legendary neon signs with remarkable color and atmosphere.

The first frame centers on Luke’s 32 Bridge Food + Drink, its towering neon cowboy illuminating the busy street below. Across the street, Robert’s Western World and Jack’s Bar-B-Que stand as two of Lower Broadway’s most recognizable landmarks, their vintage signs glowing against the Nashville skyline.

The halation produced by CineStill 800T gives each neon tube a soft halo that feels perfectly suited to Music City’s nightlife, creating images that are as much about the character of the street as they are about the architecture and venues themselves.

One evening I set out to explore Nashville’s Printers Alley with my Pentax 67, curious to see how well I could handhold medium format film after dark. Loaded with CineStill 800T, the goal was simple: capture the atmosphere of the alley’s neon lights without the aid of a tripod. The Pentax 67 is a heavy camera, so every frame required bracing against a wall or pulling the camera tightly into my shoulder to keep it as steady as possible while shooting.

CineStill 800T proved to be the perfect film stock for the evening. Its signature halation effect glows around the hanging lights that stretch across Printers Alley, adding a cinematic quality to each frame.

The first image captures the iconic Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar illuminated beneath the alley lights, while the second turns the camera toward a quieter moment—a lone employee taking a smoke break just around the corner. Together, the photographs showcase why CineStill 800T has become one of my favorite film stocks for night photography.

The Dead South performing at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville TN. Shot on a Widelux panoramic film camera with Cinestill 800T.

Photographing The Tragically Hip was one of those assignments that felt significant at the time, but became even more meaningful in hindsight. While covering one of the band’s tour stops in Canada, I spent most of the evening creating digital images for the assignment, but I also carried a Widelux panoramic film camera loaded with Cinestill 800T film. Between songs and moments on stage, I exposed a handful of panoramic frames that captured the energy of the performance in a way that felt very different from my digital work.

The Widelux is a unique 35mm panoramic camera that uses a rotating swing lens to create an exceptionally wide image. For concert photography, the format allows the entire stage, lighting design, and atmosphere of a performance to exist within a single frame. Combined with Cinestill 800T, a tungsten-balanced film known for its rich saturation and distinctive rendering of artificial light, the resulting photographs captured the vivid stage colors and mood of the show in a way that immediately stood apart from the digital images.

What makes these photographs especially meaningful to me today is that this would be my first and last opportunity to photograph The Tragically Hip. At the time, none of us knew that Gord Downie would later announce his diagnosis and that his passing would mark the end of an era for one of Canada’s most beloved bands. Looking back, these panoramic film photographs have become more than concert images—they are a record of a moment that can never be repeated.

Photographed on a Widelux panoramic camera with Cinestill 800T film, these images remain some of my favorite examples of film concert photography, combining the unique perspective of a swing-lens camera with the unforgettable atmosphere of a live performance by The Tragically Hip.