Tag Archives: light

June 2, 2012

Trippy Key West, or How Toy Cameras Made My Pictures Extra Special

By ipdegirl

Key West is a crazy place, but how do you capture the essence of the insanity? Through a plastic lens and some crazy film, of course.

The view while floating on my back in the pool where we were staying. I miss that palm tree. Shot with Holga on Kodak Tmax 400iso.

Our favorite coffee shop in KW

While I was in Key West I did a little experimentation with double and long exposures, as well as with Revolog’s Tesla II and Rasp films. My results were trippy, mind-warping goodness. These toy camera shots not only show you the sights, they really capture the essence of Key West.

I own two Holgas and they each take very different pictures. The Holga I brought to KW was my zebra-striped special, which has a lens that fuzzes out a lot of the periphery of my pictures. Look at the first picture in this post, the palm tree. You can see the softness all along the borders of the photo, giving it a very dreamy quality. Floating beneath that tree in the pool, enjoying the cool water, was very relaxing and tranquil, a mood that is captured perfectly in this Holga picture.

Let’s start our tripped-out tour of Key West with some black and white Holga shots from my brother’s wedding.

It was a beautiful, sunny day and it was HOT! The sultry air made everyone feel a little lazy. Add some beer and tequila to the mix and the world became a little soft and fuzzy. The Holga plus black and white film brings that mood to these pictures.

I really love using the Holga for long-exposure shots at weddings because it captures the energy of the day, as it does in the long exposure shots of my brother Jim and his wife April, as they cut their cake.

The two shots at the railing by the water are especially sweet. They show Lexi, April’s daughter (and my new niece) gazing out at the sea, one with a friend Shane and the other, all by herself. Check out the clouds…all zoomy and funny looking at the edges.

Next, we’ll move onto some shots made trippy by the film I used. You’ve seen a couple of these shots before, but bear with me. The first two are taken on Revolog Tesla II and show April and Jimmy with lightning bolts.

It’s great when the random special effects on this film show up in just the right areas. Next, a couple taken on Revolog Rasp. The first is very underexposed, the second is just phenomenal.

The textures of Rasp add a funkiness to these shots that I just love.

Back to shots from my Holga, which has a tendency to wind film in a wonky manner, causing some overlapping. First, you’ll see the two pictures separately, then all together.

We’ll finish up with some of the weirdest shots on the roll. I tried for some intentional double exposures, which turned out okay, but when the film was exposed to light as I unloaded it from the camera, these shots became magic.

The background is of a fence with a sign that reads “No Parking Unless Snow Depth Exceeds 2 inches”

Long exposure of a British phone booth in someone’s backyard

Trippy scooter

Sailing off into the great unknown

as my husband put it, “sailing through tide and times”

Toy cameras are the perfect medium for a funky place like Key West. I will never go anywhere eclectic without my Holga and some film. I do love the iPhone photos I took, but once again, film gave my pictures a depth and character that I couldn’t have achieved otherwise. Thanks for virtual tripping with me

Leave a comment | tags: "Key West", analogue, boats, callard, camera, cheap, Cuban Coffee Queen, exposure, fi, fidelity, film, Holga, ipdegirl, jenni, leaks, light, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, long, low, ocean, philosophy, photo, photography, plastic, postaweek2012, sail, tour, toy, trippy, vacation, Water, wedding | posted in Lo-fi Philosophies

March 4, 2012

What I Learned From a Bad Roll of Film

By ipdegirl

Being less-than-thrilled by the results of a film photo shoot is a bummer, but that’s the life of an analogue photographer. When this happens to me I always try to find out a) what went wrong and b) what went right. The results on this roll from my Canon AT-1 are a prime example.

My camera was loaded with Fuji Chrome, iso 100 slide film and had the 28-80mm zoom lens attached. The first few shots of this roll were taken indoors. I tried to do some light painting using Christmas tree lights. I also took a macro-type shot of an orchid.

Both unexciting shots, but they help to tell this story. Next, we went for a walk on the beach. It was a beautiful and unseasonably warm January afternoon. Also on this expedition I took along my Fuji Natura Classica and shot some of the pictures in this blog post. When I didn’t have to worry about light metering with the Fuji, my results were really nice. With my Canon, it was a different story.

I completely forgot there was a light meter on the camera. I suppose that’s what happens when you work with simple cameras most of the time.

The exposure isn’t the greatest on any of these, plus my film must have been expired, which helps to explain the bluish tint. Look at the first picture again and you’ll see a lovely little element entering the picture from the middle of the top…those lovely sunbursts. I continued to get them in these pictures and really love the way they look.

There were a couple of shots which made this roll worth it, namely these two that I took from an odd angle.

Clearly what went wrong here was my exposure time. In almost every shot, I completely forgot about light metering. Slide film always needs a little more light and the slow speed of the film I was using didn’t help. On the positive side, I love the sunbursts and the unusual POV I took in the last few shots.

So you see, just because you think a roll is a disaster, you may be mistaken. It’s always important to learn from your mistakes, in photography and in real life, and appreciate the beauty that was actually captured.

2 comments | tags: analogue, antique, Beach, callard, camera, Delaware, exposure, fi, fidelity, film, ipdegirl, jenni, light, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, low, philosophy, photo, photography, postaweek2012, retro, sunburst | posted in Lo-fi Philosophies

January 21, 2012

Light Painting and Help The Photo Palace

By ipdegirl

Over the holidays I decided to try my hand at some light painting while walking along the streets of my town at night. For these shots I used my Smena 8 with Kodak Gold iso 400 film.

I was getting warmed up here. As you can see, it’s just a hand-held long-exposure shot, but I like the composition.

This one is zippy! I moved the camera in circles near a bare tree lit by LED lights.

The lights in this tree were further up in the sky. I must have used small, circular motions because the shapes made by the lights look like little snails.

These lights were at the top of a lamppost. They were the old-fashioned kind of lights with giant colored bulbs. You can really see the difference in color temperature between these and the LEDs.

I have more light painting shots on the way. I loaded my Canon 70′s film SLR with Fuji slide film (which I’m getting cross-processed) and am eager to see what I captured.

Remember the Photo Palace bus? Well I got this email from Anton, one of its creators:

Hi Friends,

Well with two weeks left in the funding campaign I really am hoping for a miracle. We are only 20% funded and somehow we are supposed to raise the rest in just 14 days.

I was going to make a video update talking about the educational component of the venture, but with 30 minutes left at my job (which is where I edited the last video because my computer is not powerful enough) my Final Cut file crashed and the info got lost so there’s no time to start over…

In the update I was going to say how many wonderful things we will offer to the film community at large: art shows where people can see a gum print and a tintype and a bromoil print, workshops on pinhole cameras and cyanotypes for kids, more involved classes for adults, lectures on the history of film and how it affected the developments in photography, setting up community dark rooms all over the country…. there was a lot there, but now it’s all lost in the digital realm (if I was working with film this would not have happened…). In any case – imagine me looking rather desperate in my packed-up darkroom pleading for help It was going to be a good movie…

I really hope that this goes through and we’ll be able to get on the road by summertime. PLEASE help us out by doing another wave of postings here and there and everywhere about this project with a link to it. If you tell the people – ‘hey, I support this!’ they may listen closer and support it as well, right?

Below is the photo of Rollov Film Center – the space where I taught about a dozen students for the past year. It’s all cleaned up and ready for my departure. Please help make this campaign a success

Sincerely,
Anton

Yikes! Please help spread the word about this fantastic project and if you haven’t yet contributed to the fund, hop on over to their Kickstarter site and do so. It’s such a fantastic way to let people know that film is NOT obsolete and that there are lots of us who still love kickin’ it the lo-fi way. Besides, I really want to meet these two fellas when they come to my town!

Leave a comment | tags: "Smena 8", "The Photo Palace", analogue, callard, camera, cheap, Delaware, exposure, fi, fidelity, film, ipdegirl, jenni, light, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, long, low, painting, philosophy, photo, photography, retro, Russian | posted in My Adventures

December 17, 2011

How to Dress Up a Brownie for the Holidays

By ipdegirl

Purchasing vintage cameras requires a certain leap of faith and sometimes instead of landing on your feet, your fall flat on your ass. Take my Brownie Junior Six-20. I spotted it in an antiques shop and thought it was a bit overpriced at eight bucks, but I got it anyways (turns out that’s about list price but I digress).

After figuring out how to get the damn thing open I shot a roll of film (which I haven’t developed yet). When I tried to get the camera open to retrieve the film, it was jammed. The back just would NOT come off. Disgusted, I set it on a shelf until this afternoon. I decided to pry it open using two small screwdrivers and discovered that the full take up reel had problems fitting (even though I used 620 film and spools). That, coupled with the monumental effort it took just to open and close the camera rendered it inefficient to use as a picture-taking camera. It’s destiny was to forever sit on some decorative shelves until, I had a lightbulb moment.

I’ve had the idea of making a light out of a camera since I saw one a few months ago. I knew it would be pretty simple and it truly is. Here’s how I did it. You need a camera in which the aperture can remain open and a light source. In this case it’s my old piece-of-crap Brownie and a little reading light that I got from the dollar store.

To keep the Brownie’s aperture open you simply need to pull out the little lever on the side (look below the red crayon) then push the exposure lever down.

Then, position the light so that it aims directly through the open lens. You may need to stuff some paper or other soft filler behind the light so that it doesn’t move out of place.

That’s it!

It’s not very bright as you can see, but it’s much more interesting looking than your standard silver and black model flashlight.

I’m really glad I was able to give a new life to this old beauty. It may have fallen pretty flat as a camera but it lights up my nights as a light and my kids are having a blast with it. Plus, I think it might look quite nice dressed up in some festive decor and placed on my mantlepiece or even on my Christmas tree!