what i did this weekend

we realized this weekend that we now have more than 200m2 of house to use, but we spent most of it huddled together inside of about 6 of those square meters, which happen not to have electricity yet (electrician coming on thursday), making stuff by candlelight. paintings, a christmas banner (not finished yet, as my fellow crafters sort of drifted away on me), several pillows and a christmas french press cozy (for which i say a heartfelt thank you to melissa at tiny happy for her awesome tutorial).

i also spent quite a lot of time looking for my card reader so i could download pictures, but finally found it in the Wiimote basket (it has a cord on it after all, so someone threw it in there) after looking for it for 24 hours and putting all of the swear words i know together in refreshing new ways. husband said it was good for me to have delayed gratification. that made him very popular, as you might imagine.

i spent all of sunday in my pajamas, which felt like mad luxury. i love days like that.

on saturday, i scored an old kodak six-20 brownie D at the flea market for under $10. then i spent more than an hour researching ways of using 120 film in it. it did come with one old 620 film spool inside of it, so it just might be possible. fun! and more importantly, it prompted me to start my drawings of the stuff i buy already now:

saturday's fajita dinner was made entirely of things we had in the house (except for some avocados (which is what that bottom picture above is supposed to be--i don't have the drawing thing down entirely quite yet), which were essential for the guacamole)--including leftover chicken from a chicken i baked the night before. i was rather proud of myself for this, tho' we still throw away far too much food in this house. i've been thinking about it since reading about the high costs of wasting food in mankind mag.

i made the painting above. did you do anything fun this weekend?

slow saturday

i'm a bit slow today. got home a bit late after a nice dinner and chatting all evening with a friend. oh, and a few too many glasses of wine. so i'm decidedly in slow motion. we were supposed to head to istanbul today. i should be on a plane right now. but husband has meetings at work next week that he feels he can't miss. sabin and i could have gone anyway, but it took the fun out of it that husband wasn't going, so we stayed home too. it's the autumn holiday next week, so sabin doesn't doesn't have school. we'll have to find fun things to do...museums, the halloween extravaganza at tivoli, long walks and taking lots of pictures.  because yesterday, i got this:

i'm excited to take more "real" TtV pix with it. it's a rolleicord from the early 50s. i'm really excited about TLR cameras and in addition to the TtV thing, i'm going to load in some of that expired 120 film i got at the flea market.

husband says i should pick one or two of my hobbies and devote time to them and try to get into them properly. he's no doubt right. i think photography is definitely one to devote a bit more time to and i'm going to look for groups of like-minded photography people in my area (rather than hanging out on the 'net all the time). and i do still want to learn to knit. and then there is the pretty paper. how do you decide what hobby to devote your time to? should i really have to choose? so many things appeal--sewing, gocco, art journaling, painting, photography. i just bought a book about embroidery. i feel such a need for creativity, but husband is right, i am spreading it all quite thin and not properly devoting myself to any of it. except perhaps the photos. it was quite fun to lie on the ground, playing with my macro lens and get these pictures of some mushrooms that were poking their little heads up through the bricks in the circle today.

and with my brain on the slow motion setting today, these musings are MUCH better than thinking about that ridiculous campaign going on in the US. that just makes my brain hurt.

through the viewfinder

in light of my fabulous flea market find yesterday, i spent a bit of time today playing with through the viewfinder photography. from what i've read online, this isn't the ideal camera for it, but that didn't really stop me. before i ventured into making any contraptions, i played with my macro on auto to see how close i could get before it would stop doing its auto thing. this was the result:

then, i fashioned a contraption of sorts and shot a whole bunch of pictures, of which i will share but two:

and this one:

i do think this could get a bit addictive, but i can see that i have to try outside on a nice, sunny day (it was rainy all day today, so i only tried indoors). and i can see that i need to be on the lookout for other fun cameras to try this with. i do so adore collecting things. :-)

found: a real treasure

i indulged my hankering for poking around a flea market today. there's one every weekend over across the fjord and although it's horribly smoky in there from all of the smokers, i braved it today. and i'm happy i did, because i found this beauty:

the lens says "Jos. Schneider & Co. Kreuznach No. 275350 Xenar :4,5 F-19,5cm"

the body says "Hüttig A.G. Dresden, Modell 1907."

i don't know anything about it.

i just thought it was beautiful.

i am going to try to take pix through the viewfinder with my D60 and macro lens

if any of you know more about these cameras than i do, please share!!

lovin' the lomo thang!!

i've been having a ball with my lomo cameras. not everything has turned out on the initial rolls, but it's SOOooo much fun. even the waiting for films to be developed is way fun!

here are some samples:

expired fuji sensia 100 slide film cross-processed in C41 chemicals.

that's what gives it that cool red tint.

ducks using the octomat

my very first shot with the octomat

expired fuji sensia 100 film, cross-processed

expired fuji sensia 100 cross-processed.

taken by sabin with her penguin-shaped toy camera that came with some candy.

bicycle store in frederikssund

ordinary 120 film, taken using the diana+

ordinary 35mm film in the fisheye 2

expired fuji sensia 100 cross-processed in C41
i think my camera store messed up this processing, but i love the effect

expired fuji sensia 100 cross-processed in C41
i think my camera store messed up this processing, but i love the effect

this lomography thing is way cool. i can highly recommend it. it's just so much fun to see what the simple mechanics of the camera can do. if you want to learn more, check out www.lomography.com and you'll see pix way better than these first ones of mine. the blurry pic of the bookshelf that i posted a few days ago was a lomo photo as well, taken with my diana+ camera.

doesn't it just figure?

so, as soon as i invest in a better digital camera, it seems that i learn that the latest, coolest trend in photography is something called lomography. which is, in effect, taking pictures with old crap cameras and expired film, although there are new cameras (the diana+, apparently the primary one is called) with fisheye lenses and such. however, ideally what one should have is an old soviet camera.

here is a photo (taken with my new nikon) of a lomography exhibit i just saw this evening out at serendra:

way cool stuff with fisheye lenses and strange colors and light effects. it's clear i must try this. why oh why didn't i buy one or more of those old soviet cameras back in '94 when i saw them in russia?

it's big here in the philippines, so i'm going on a mission tomorrow. luckily the stores are open late, since i'm working all day!