Welcome to the F6 Project – A web site devoted
to the finest 35mm film camera ever made.

After decades of wandering the Rocky Mountain West with Nikons in hand, they’re finally here: Blue Hour Journal Zines.

Blue Hour Journal Zines are concise, inspiring digital magazines designed to visually share select regions of the country I’ve had the privilege to visit. Packed with quality images and a little text for background, they are the culmination of  decades of photographs, an intense curiosity of what’s around the next bend, a lot of gas in the car and film in the cameras, and the desire to self-publish in a format easily attainable by everyone. Imagine… a magazine with no ads.

Visit our Patreon store to check them out. After decades of thinking about it, I finally took the plunge in September of 2024. Scanning thousands of images and attempting to assemble into creative, coherent bodies of work, this its a long-term project evolving and maturing as I go.

So please – let me know what you think, and feel free to make suggestions. In step with the timeless nature of film photography, the ultimate goal of this project is producing highest-quality content with a no expiration date.

Blue Hour Journal, Issue no.1: Badlands
Blue Hour Journal, Issue no.2: Nebraska digital zine
Blue Hour Journal, Issue no.3: Introduction to 4042N

Issue no.1: Badlands, focuses on a special visit to South Dakota’s Badlands National Park one late autumn afternoon. After a clearing storm, light was magical, revealing colors in the park that were nothing like one might expect looking through typical imagery of the area. Badlands is a short, beautiful photo essay of an area that’s often overlooked and under appreciated.

Issue no.2: Nebraska. Nebraska, as some would say, is ‘where the west begins.’ Inspired by Arthur Chapman’s poem, “Out Where the West Begins,” Nebraska represents the beginning of something more… After years of driving back and forth through, the desire to explore Nebraska as its own destination grew, leading to discovery of the small towns and people of this great state.

Coming soon: Issue no.3: Introduction to 4042N. It’s true – this issue has taken some time to assemble–but for good reason. 4042N represents the core of what I’ve been working on for the past 16 years. 4042N encompasses a vast swath of land between and 40th and 42nd Parallels, straddling the border of Colorado & Wyoming, including border sections of Utah and Nebraska.

The Shop

The Shop: a Master Mechanic’s home away from home and straight up man cave. The first time I saw The Shop I paused, not quite sure how to visually digest what was before me. There was part of me that smiled – wanting to dive in and go for it.

Pure Film

A few weeks ago I did something I've been meaning to do for years: began developing my own black and white film again. After a 30+ year hiatus, the time had finally come. Developer, Stop and Fixer in amber flasks, ready for action. Up until last year I'd been...

Santa Fe and Vintage, Nikon Film Bodies, chapter 2

Chapter 2: San Luis, Colorado to Santa Fe, New Mexico One of my great joys in life is driving; to simply wander and explore with a camera; and once in a while to answer that perennial question - what's down this road, or around the next bend? The drive from San...

River Music Hydro Exhibit @ Colorado State University

Recently I had the privilege of contributing to a unique and creative project called River Music, by David M. Merritt of Moonlight Studios. David is a hydrologist, and through the miracle of creativity and technology, used flow data from four separate rivers to...

Hope, Boundaries and Good Intuition

John Szarkowski writes in the introduction to William Eggleston’s opus, Guide, “It’s not easy for the photographer to compete with the clever originality of mindless, mechanized cameras, but the photographer can add intelligence. By means of photography one can in a minute reject as unsatisfactory ninety-nine configurations of facts and elect as right the hundredth. The choice is based on tradition and intuition–knowledge and ego–as it is in any art, but the ease of execution and the richness of the possibilities in photography both serve to put a premium on good intuition.”

Scanning with Nikon LS-5000 Time Machine

For the past few months I've been working on scanning/archiving slides for my family. It's a big job - many hundreds of a mixture of very old (late 1950's) to just sort of old - made in the last few decades. Several reoccurring thoughts travel my mind as I sit before...

Long-Term Review of the Nikon F6

What’s the F6’s real usable life span? Is it worth investing in? What are the weak points? What does the F6 still excel at? Does the completist in you constantly tug at your billfold causing you to wonder if you should you buy an F6?

Grand Staircase, Escalante National Monument, Utah

I first visited the northern region of the Escalante Staircase area years ago after reading an article on the Burr Trail -but that's another story. More recently (back in 2007) I hit it from the south, having come up one night from Flagstaff and checked into a hotel...

Old Growth

The Shop

Wood smoke, grease, charred wood, machine oil, steel, dried, cracked varnish, leather, copper, dead mice, fly traps and old stuff that’s been sitting in coffee cans for 50 years. Not just a visual cacophony, but an experience all your senses will never forget.

Other Efforts:

johnbcrane.com

Other Efforts:

bluehourjournal.com

Other Efforts :

cranedigital.com