Tag Archives: Land
My parents, who so generously got me the Yashica 635, arrived at my house last week with two more vintage beauties for me. This Konica C35 was purchased at the same time as my Yashica.
I know next to nothing about this camera but am excited to play around with it. The other camera came from my Mom’s cedar chest. It was her camera back in the day….a Polaroid Land Camera Automatic 103
This one I am familiar with. It’s the relative of another Polaroid Land Camera that I own, the 220, and just like my 220 (which I affectionately refer to as Aunt Bertha’s camera because it came with EVERYTHING in the case, including a little lace hankie, and smelled like the top of a moth-ball-filled closet), it included the case, manual and a flash unit. Once I get a battery for it I’m going to give it a try. I’m hoping the roller functions better than the 220 so I don’t get gluey rollers half way through my film pack. What a pain it is to clean.
I’m still waiting for my first Yashica roll to come back from the developers. I took it out last week on a foggy morning as we took the kids and dog for a walk in the woods. I’m hoping for some moody, misty shots. Until then, I will share some iPhone photos I took while at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Curators are masters of using light to highlight the best parts of an exhibit. Whether the lighting is very low, casting gorgeous shadows on the walls, or warm and inviting, everything is beautiful and begging to be captured by an intrepid photographer. Whenever I visit a museum I treat it as a workshop in lighting. I push myself and try new techniques to see how my camera best responds. This first shot was taken through my Holga Lens Turret’s blue filter.
This last shot was in the cafeteria. I used the Salvadore 84 lens on all the pictures that look doubly exposed.
Museums are also great places to test out your camera’s macro abilities. The iPhone is phenomenal at close up shots and even better with the Holga Lens Turret’s macro lens.
The rest of these pictures are taken without the macro lens.
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Leave a comment | tags: analogue, antique, art, callard, camera, cheap, Delaware, fi, fidelity, film, Hipstamatic, instant, ipdegirl, iPhone, iPhoneography, jenni, Land, lighting, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, low, macro, museum, photo, photography, polaroid, postaweek2012, retro, study, vintage | posted in My Adventures
Have you ever wondered what camera your favorite musician might use? OK, maybe I’m the only one. Since I love jazz I was thinking the other day about what kind of lo-fi camera some famous jazz musicians might use or which camera best captures the spirit of that person. Here we go…
Duke Ellington: Elegant, classic, sharp as a tack, refined, beautiful harmonies, smooth…..all the things I think of when I use my Kiev 88
Thelonius Monk: Crazy genius, marches to the beat of his own drummer, eccentric, always in motion. Kind of like my Spinner 360
Ethel Ennis: Smooth, elegant, vocalist with velvety voice, dreamy, soft. Born in one of my favorite cities, Baltimore, MD. I think she’s a Diana.
Dizzy Gillespie: energetic, Be-Bop trumpeter with crazy technique and great cheeks. I’ll give him an Action Sampler and see what he does with it.
Miles Davis: Can NOT forget one of the best musicians ever. His trumpet style ranges from frenetic be-bop to smooth, low, dreamy jazz. A true innovator always pushing the boundaries, always re-inventing himself, just like the Holga.
Tito Puente: Latin jazz master who plays some of my favorite percussion instruments (I played the marimba in high school….it rocks). Always on the beat but always trying new, crazy different things while staying within the confines of the tremendous genre known as Latin Jazz. I think a Lubitel is in order.
Joshua Redman: One of my favorite modern jazz artists, I went to see him when he first started touring. His style is unmistakable but not too crazy. Clean but innovative. His sound and his interpretations are unique and noticeable (to me, anyways) from afar. Polaroid SX-70, anyone?
These are just a few of my favorites….add to the list now, why don’t ya?
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6 comments | tags: "Action Sampler", "Dizzy Gillespie", "Duke Ellington", "Ethel Ennis", "Joshua Redman", "Kiev 88", "Miles Davis", "Spinner 360", "Thelonius Monk", "Tito Puente", analogue, antique, callard, camera, cheap, Delaware, Diana, fi, fidelity, film, Holga, instant, ipdegirl, iPhoneography, jazz, jenni, Land, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, low, Lubitel, music, musician, musicians, personality, philosophy, photo, photography, polaroid, postaweek2011, profile, retro, Russian, SX-70, toy, vintage | posted in Lo-fi Philosophies
I don’t look like a criminal but apparently some people think I do.
A few weeks ago, armed with a Polaroid SX-70 and my iPhone, I went to a spot I’ve been meaning to photograph for at least a year. On the side of a rural road sits a broken-down, rusted out school bus, a rusted jeep, a few tired old buildings and random rusty skeletons of things that are now unrecognizable. Exactly the kind of things I like to photograph.
With its surfboard rack, peace and love stickers and car seat in the back, I don’t think my vehicle could be mistaken for a great getaway car but there it sat, on the side of the road. Dressed in Old Navy’s finest pea coat and wearing boots, nice khaki pants and nary a hair out-of-place, I set out to get some shots before the sunlight faded.
I always feel a little conspicuous when taking pictures on the side of the road but I just chalk it up to paranoia. Then it happened.
A white car slowed down, a woman rolled down her window and told me she had to take down my license plate number because there had been a lot of thefts recently of the junk I had been photographing.
“No, I’m just taking pictures” I told her as I stood up, SX-70 around my neck.
“That’s what they do” she said, “take pictures in the daytime and come back at night and steal”. Then her car slowly pulled away as I sat there, stunned, unable to come up with a response.
Did that really just happen?
Did she really think I was going to steal stuff? What would she have said to me if my skin had been ‘the wrong color’ or if I had been dressed in dirty, ripped-up clothes and why the hell hadn’t someone moved this valuable junk if people just kept on stealing it?
As a middle-class white girl I know I’m lucky to have never had to deal with racial or socio-economic stereotyping based on my appearance so I can’t IMAGINE what a monumental pain in the ass it must be for those who are.
I am extremely grateful that I don’t live in a country in which my camera is confiscated on a regular basis. Balancing security with freedom of artistic expression is a tricky business in our post-9/11 world. The preponderance of cameras in 2011 should make people more comfortable with the idea of photography, instead I think that people are generally much more paranoid about photographers.
We’ve all heard stories of folks being asked to move on by security guards and there are plenty of landmarks where you can only grab one or two quick shots before you’re mistaken for someone plotting something nefarious. A good friend of mine has been questioned numerous times while photographing bridges and buildings. He’s even been kicked out of places but he really just loves architecture, plain and simple.
I’ve researched my rights as a photographer and know where my boundaries are according to the law, but the general public isn’t usually as well versed. I was on the side of the road and my subjects were clearly in view from public land. I wasn’t deep into the field, poking around in the buildings and vehicles, even though there were no warning or privacy signs posted. I don’t know who owned the land and I doubt the woman in the car did either, but I do try to be respectful.
As stupid as that whole exchange on the side of the road seemed to me, I’m glad that woman took the time to tell me what she was doing. It taught me a lesson and that is to always have a business card prepared to present to people and to always expect that someone isn’t going to like what you’re doing.
Here are the pictures I got that afternoon. I like the way they turned out considering the short amount of time I spent at the site.
Do you have any similar horror stories? I’d love to hear them and how you dealt with the situation.
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5 comments | tags: accusation, accused, analogue, antique, callard, camera, cheap, criminal, Delaware, false, fi, fidelity, film, freedom, Holga, ipdegirl, iPhone, iPhoneography, jenni, Land, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, low, objects, paranoia, philosophy, photography, place, postaweek2011, public, responsibilities, retro, rights, rusty, security, theft, toy, vintage | posted in Lo-fi Philosophies
Last week I told you about my experiences in the fog. It was very educational taking my toy cameras out in the foul weather and trying to make decent pictures so this week, when we got a rare snowstorm, I decided to try another foul weather photography session.
This time I brought my Polaroid Land Camera 220 and my Fed 2 out to play. I still used black and white film in both cameras (the Fed 2 still had the roll from the previous foggy weather session) as it’s a very pleasing medium for rough weather and uncertain exposure times. Plus, it’s hard enough getting the blacks and whites right let alone trying to get the colors in balance.
There were large, wet snowflakes coming down at a pretty good clip when I took my toys out to play. My Land Cam has no numerical controls for the aperture, instead there is a switch that lets you change the Lightness and Darkness of the picture to varying degrees. You can set the film speed on the Land Cam but they are odd film speeds that must’ve been common back in the 1960′s. The closest corresponding number was 75 (my Fuji film was 100 iso). I sort of liked the idea of the nebulous “lighter” and “darker” switches but in actual practice, it was a pain. Again I was plagued with balancing the very light snowy areas with the dark colors of evergreen foliage, bare tree branches and the dark wood on the side of my house.
I started my experiment in the usual way taking the first shot with the light/dark switch right in the middle. As you can imagine it was horribly dark, although not nearly as bad looking as my Holgaroid shots.
I fiddled with the switch for a few shots and eventually got some nicely exposed photographs of my snowy backyard.
Still a bit dark, but better. Details of the birdhouse are visible, but no snowflakes.
I tried to shoot the falling snow against the dark background of this dark evergreen but still had no success.
The one thing I wanted to capture but wasn’t able to was the image of the snow falling. I just couldn’t get the large snowflakes to show up in the picture. It was a bit frustrating and I suppose, has to do with the limits of the camera.
Not wanting to waste anymore film I decided to stop trying to capture the falling snow and concentrate on shapes, like this bare tree.
The icy droplets on these wisteria branches were also a decent subject
Last Polaroid shot of the day was the white snow on the dark wood of my back porch door.
I’m hoping to have better results with the Fed 2 film as I used my light meter to get the correct exposure time, then bracketed a few shots. I finally finished that roll on this snowy day so as soon as I pull them from the developer I’ll post my results.
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1 comment | tags: 2, 220, antique, black, camera, contrast, developed, experiment, Fed, fi, film, foul, instant, Land, lo, lo-fi, photograhpy, photography, polaroid, self, snow, toy, vintage, weather, white | posted in My Adventures
Now that the turkey has been eaten and the pumpkin pie put away, it’s time to get back to some camera talk.
Awhile back I posted some mods for my Polaroid Land Camera 220 so that it would accept Fuji instant film without getting stuck. I finally shot the last few pictures in that pack and was able to unload it and take pictures of what I actually did. Unfortunately I’m still running into problems with the Fuji film but more about that in a minute.
When you open up the back of your camera you’ll see this. That little metal bar, visible right below the roller towards the top of the camera, is the root of the Fuji film problem. In my camera that little bar was kind of bent down causing the film to jam up when I tried to pull it out. At first I tried bending the two prongs back. It didn’t work. Then I tried to bend to bar back into shape. That didn’t work either. If the camera was going to function properly the bar was going to need to be completely removed. I removed the two small screws, visible to the right of my thumb, and the screw in the top middle of the black plate which you can see is slightly recessed below the roller. Here are a couple of shots of the bar.
Once that metal bar was removed I throughly cleaned the rollers, which were all gunked up with glue from the film. I used rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip and scrubbed until they gleamed. I thought my problems were over so I loaded up another pack of film and went searching for suitable subjects around town. All was going well until the 5th or 6th picture then things started jamming up again. I wasted the last half of the pack trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
I discovered that my rollers were, again, totally clogged with glue residue. Look closely at the sides of the rollers in the first picture and you’ll get an idea of what happenend. There were even little bits of the paper tabs stuck in the glue. Now I’m baffled. I don’t know how to fix this problem. I clean the rollers after each and every pack of film and it doesn’t make much difference. If anyone has a suitable solution by all means, post it please!! I’m going to go surf the net now to see if I can find some answers. Until then, here are some of the good shots I got with my crazy Land Camera.
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Leave a comment | tags: 1960s, 220, analogue, camera, fidelity, film, instant, Land, lo-fi, low, modifications, mods, photography, polaroid, retro | posted in How do I....
I almost threw my ‘new’ Land Camera out the window today.
I finally got the batteries to work the shutter and after properly installing them, I promptly filled my camera’s hungry little belly with Fuji-100 instant film. I took a shot of three pumpkins in my backyard and went to pull the picture out of the side. No dice. It was stuck. Big Time! I pulled and pulled and pulled and only succeded in ripping tiny shreds of white paper from the tag of the film. I got tweezers, pliers (both flat and needle-nosed) and tried to extricate my film that way but only succeded in ripping the paper even more. I took it into a dark closet (even though we’ve only known each other a few days) and tried to re-load the film tags. What a nightmare! To spare you any further details I ended up with a big, goopy mess and wasted 75% of my film pack trying to free the pictures the correct way. I must’ve taken 10 pictures of those stupid pumpkins. It was time to consult the internet.
Thanks to Flickr I found a Polaroid Land Camera group that had a big thread relating to such problems. It took a bit of searching and of course now I can’t find my way back to that glorious thread, but here’s the basic problem. It seems as though there are two little pins near the rollers that cause undue tension on Fuji film. It was recommended that you either bend back these pins or break them off and pop a piece of weather stripping in it’s place. After a little surgery my film was still sticking. I did some further modification on my own by completely removing the bar that holds these two pins. This bar was bent up and was putting more tension on the film than just those two stupid little pins ever could have. After throughly cleaning the rollers and checking the battery connections I was FINALLLY able to get my Land Camera working! I’ll post pictures of my modification and a direct link to the ever-so-helpful mod directions in a later blog. Until then….
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Leave a comment | tags: 220, camera, film, frustration, Fuji, instant, Land, modifications, mods, polaroid, stuck, tabs | posted in Uncategorized
I had a Halloween-type party to attend this weekend (Saturday Oct. 18 which was World Toy Camera Day, but more about that later) and wanted to attend as a press photographer circa 1950′s so I could incorporate my toy cameras into the outfit. I was browsing the men’s suit section looking for a jacket that was classy yet over-the-top. The best I could find was a Master’s-Green polyester number. Not quite the look I was going for. OK, maybe I could go as Laverne from the old “Laverne & Shirley” T.V. show? Nope, no luck finding a workers shirt or suitable pencil-thin capri pants. I hate shopping and was getting really frustrated. All hopes of finding a cool retro Halloween outfit were shot. I figured, while I was in a thrift store I’d have more fun searching for something useful, thus began my quest last week for, you guessed it, a ‘new’ bargain vintage camera.
I got lucky at the first store. In the camera section, hidden behind a busted Olympus body, was an Action Sampler with film still inside! I grabbed it off the shelf and tried it out and unfortunately the four shutters weren’t firing correctly. Other than a few junker cams there was nothing of real interest.
At the second place I was able to procure a 5-pack of 35mm expired Kodak Gold 24 film for $5.00. That made me pretty happy but I was left wanting more. It was time to go hard core. With some child-free time on my hands, I decided to hit a few antiques stores.
I drove to a nearby town and at the first store I was greeted by a friendly grey cat. I couldn’t go past the foyer until the kitty was petted a few times. This place had some great stuff – old military uniforms, football helmets, bitters bottles and toys caught my eye — but no cameras in sight. I went up the rickety wooden stairs to the second story, which looked to be mostly furniture, lacy things and moldy-looking Christmas decorations, and struck gold. I found a complete Polaroid Land Camera 220 kit, complete with bag, instruction booklet and stiff mounting paper, for $3.00! I was like a kid at Christmas. I marveled over the crazy construction of the camera, it’s bellows and sliding focus system. There were even some notes left in the bag written by the camera’s owner (who was clearly as anal-retentive as I am about my equipment) reminding her of what batteries and flash the camera used. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was which size film it used. If Fuji’s instant film fit the camera it would truly be a great score but if not, I’d only be out three bucks and I’d be able to use it until Polaroid film dissapeared.
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I logged onto The Land List, a comprehensive categorization of virtually every Polaroid camera known to man. If you haven’t yet visited the site, check it out. Much to my shock and amazement my new treasure indeed accepts the Fuji! I was so completely stoked! Even my husband was thrilled and how could he not be? For $3 I had a great camera in my hands. The Land Cam is heavy but fits in the hands quite well. All the controls you need are easy to reach. The only awarkward part is the bellows, but that’s what gives it that distinct, retro look. As far as I can tell Aunt Bertha (or whoever owned it before me) took great care of this specimen. It smells a little funky (like the moth-balled top of someone’s closet) but other than that it’s very clean. I even had fun reading the instruction book. My favorite quote: “As soon as you open the film pack you will begin to accumulate waste paper. There will be more when you develop the pictures. We hope that it won’t become litter in the streets or be scattered around the landscape”.
I’ve seen Land Cameras at other thrift stores selling for around $5.00 so they can definetly be had on-the-cheap. Instead of eBay for Polaroid cameras check out your local thrift or antiques store. Many people have no idea that you can still get film for these beauties and prematurely abandon lovely, working relics. Remember that most of these cameras need batteries, a fact I found out the hard way. After wasting a few pictures and exposing nearly the entire pack to light, it became evident that my shutter wasn’t opening (even though it sounded like it was) because there were no batteries in the camera. Again, with the help of The Land List, I was able to order the correct sized 4.5Volt battery with snap-ends from batterymart.com. Once it arrives I’ll begin viewing the world through my Land Cams eyes.
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Leave a comment | tags: 220, analogue, antique, camera, cheap, fidelity, find, kit, Land, lo-fi, low, photography, polaroid, retro, store, treasure, vintage | posted in Uncategorized
ipdegirl
