Film Log: Roll 004 | Cafes, Parks & Portraits on Kodak Gold

Roll 004 was shot in August 2025 with a Nikon FG on Kodak Gold 200. This roll was developed and scanned by PhotoLounge, my exclusive photo lab and film processing sponsor. <3

When I started Philly Immersion, it was all about coffee shops. All the photos were taken ad hoc on my crappy iPhone and edited in Instagram. In the spirit of re-launching Philly Immersion, I wanted to try and recreate the photos I used to take at cafes, only this time I'm using my fancy Nikon FG.

Char & Stave, located in Chestnut Hill and Ardmore, serves coffee by day and whiskey by night. I've spent a lot of time at the Chestnut Hill location—for journalling sessions, meetups with friends, and trivia nights. It's one of the few places that is open later than 9pm in Chestnut Hill and they host a variety of events throughout the week, making it a great third-space and place to build community. On this particular trip, I sat at the bar and ordered the Garden on the Hill, made with butterfly pea infused juniperus gin.

I was feeling really self-conscious at first. When I took pictures with my iPhone, it was no big deal. Not many people noticed me—it was easy to be discreet. But now? Now I have to use the viewfinder to set up the shot and finagle with all the settings and focus before finally taking the picture—a loud CLICK! basically announcing to the entire cafe that I've taken a picture. I'm getting quicker with every roll, but it still takes me a good 30 seconds to line up the shot correctly. But I'm glad I pushed out of my comfort zone because the results were entirely worth it. I could never capture the essence of a cafe like this before.

The next few shots are from the Wissahickon Valley Park where a ton of geese and ducks hang around. Unfortunately, even on a sunny day, most of the geese were sitting in the shade which made lighting a little difficult. I was also shooting with a prime lens which made getting the right composition hard because most of the animals were farther away and in the water, but it was a fun exercise overall. It was really tricky balancing the harsh light of the sun and the dark shadows in the shade for the wider shots—I feel like the sky and bridge are more overexposed than I would like and I'm not yet sure how to fix that.

I got portraits of my friends and they are easily my favorite photos from the entire roll. I have no comments, only pride. (And the prettiest friends.)

Finally, a roll would not be complete without my kitties. The weather is August was beautiful with hints of Fall in crisp mornings which was a sweet relief after a hot and humid July. We had our windows open more this month and the kitties took every opportunity to sunbathe and bird-watch.

I closed out the roll in the car and on the Schuylkill River Trail (God help me, I've lived here ten years and still need to google the spelling for Schuylkill) and got lucky with a couple kayaking. I'm a big fan of using frames within photos and love how this one turned out, even if there's a lot going on.

I've already sent my next roll in for development and it'll include photos from a recent Photo Walk I did with PhotoLounge in Old City, Philadelphia as well as shots from a recent walk on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge—my favorite Philly landmark. Can't wait to see how they turned out. <3