Jonathan Grado

Neon, night, and donuts. What do they have in common? They’re all spelt differently. Oh, and I love them all. I recently drove by the Mrs. Johnson’s Hot Donuts neon sign and thought “yup”. Made a u-turn, pulled over, got the tripod out, and took some long exposures.

These are my first photos with my Fujifilm X-T5. Over the years I went from the X-T1, X-T3, and now the X-T5. To be honest, I didn't really think about upgrading to the X-T5 when it was first announced (or even when it was coming up to that normal two year cycle for Fuji). But due to some bug with the X-T3 files in Lightroom, the white balance would change sporadically, I checked out the X-T5. It would turn out most of the first photos I got with this Fuji would be at night.

Other than the 24-hour Tyson's Tacos behind me, I had Austin’s Airport Boulevard to myself. In most cases that would be ideal. But! I wanted the taillights in the long exposures. So there was a lot of waiting around and overthinking where the tripod should go. I had the XF23mm F1.4 R and XF35mm F2 R WR with me and wanted to see their differences at night. I was wondering why my backpack still felt heavy when I had everything out and realized my XF90mm F2 R LM WR was in a separate compartment. So I had that one put in some work too. While I do like all the photos all three lenses produced, I think I'm drawn most to the XF35mm and XF90mm ones. Just waiting now until they open for an actual donut.

HOT DONUTS
       DONUTS
HOT DONUTS
       DONUTS
HOT DONUTS

One of these can be found in the photo series Provided You’re Still Here.