a community photo project

a lomo photo exhibition i saw in manila inspired my project

in recent months, i've gotten involved in a culture group in my community. funds have been ear-marked for our town to have a new "culture house," of which the only thing that's known is that the library will be part of it. right now, the culture house exists in what was the old city hall (and the library is a few blocks away in another old building). decisions have to be made as to whether that building will be renovated or a new one built. as you may imagine, there are factions on both sides and emotions run high.

me, i don't much care WHERE the events to take place, only THAT they take place, so it's quite easy for me to be dispassionate about it (the same cannot be said for many of the others). what i want is for there to be a big variety of cultural events and classes and activities going on for people of all ages. i got involved to bring new ideas to the table and, because i'm selfish like that, to ensure that there's stuff happening that i want to do!

but first, i'm putting my money where my mouth is - tomorrow evening, i'll present the start of a community photo project. the idea of the project is that anyone and everyone in the community should take photos of their life in our town over the next year. they will then (hopefully) contribute them to a flickr group and in a year, we'll have a lomo-style photo exhibition along the lines of the one i saw one time in manila, featuring everyone's photos. and we'll have documented a year in the life of our little town, as well as, i hope, having made new friends along the way.  i've planned the first photo meet-up, since it's sometimes easier to take pictures in public when you're with other people.

i'm going to kick off the project with some inspiration from my own nearly four years of taking daily photos. until i went through my three (!!) iPhoto libraries to prepare the presentation for this project, i didn't realize that i effectively started taking photos every day when i got my first nikon DSLR in may 2008. i just didn't call it a 365 'til january 1, 2010.

it has been a bit hard for me to narrow down all i want to share about how rewarding i think it is to take photos every day (tho' doing that will not be a requirement for participation in the project). it has also been hard to narrow down which photos i want to show for inspiration. i have a notion that many people think that every photograph has to include people, so i'm going to share some ideas for photos that expand people's photographic horizons...to get them thinking about light and shadows and photographing the same spot at different times of day, in different seasons. i've also included a few of my foot shots, as well as shoe per diem, just to share a bit of my own photo obsessions and prove you don't need faces for a photo to be interesting.

most of all, i love the beginning of a new project. i love the feeling of anticipation, the not knowing what direction it will go or how it will turn out. i even love the butterflies in my stomach over the thought that no one will come (all i need is a few to come). but i also want to make it clear that people can join along the way.  of course, i have some ideas of what i want the exhibition to be like in the end (see above lomo photo), but i also intend to keep an open mind and see what happens. when you put something out there and you involve other people, you never know where it lead. but you have to be willing to see where it will take you.

double exposure

in many ways, it's my friend mik's fault that i'm as enchanted with photography as i am. he taught me to do jump shots and he taught me about lomo and he made me realize i needed a DSLR. he's a graphic designer and flash developer and truly one of the most talented, coolest people i know. if you want to know what the next big trend is, you've just got to ask mik what he's into at the moment, because he's at the leading edge.

so when he recently put these amazing pictures on facebook and called them a "happy accident," i asked him if i could share them with you here.  it's a roll of film that he took on a recent visit to japan and then accidentally double exposed on one of his frequent outings to the fabulous philippine beach paradise that is boracay. and i think they're some of the best photos i've seen in ages. and they make me really excited about my coming film swap photos with shookofeh and kristina.

this is my favorite one

scenic overlook

the beach meets mt. fuji

just a hint of mik there on the right.

so haunting

double exposure, accidental or not, gives such possibilities - the philippines vs. japan, city vs. beach, sand vs. mountains - it all speaks of something deeper and more profound than a single exposure can do on its own. it was a happy accident indeed, but i wonder if intentionality would have added anything in this case.  that's the question i'm pondering....but i suspect the art is in the accident.

* * *

check mik's tumblr here. and more from this roll here on flickr. and thank you, mik, for letting me share your gorgeous, multi-layered, deep and profound (even if accidental) photos here...you should seriously have these up in a gallery.

photo obsessions

i'm a sucker for a new photographic obsession. last may, on a trip to singapore i bought my nikon D60 and when i got to manila and found my friends were all into lomo, i bought a couple of analog lomography cameras--a diana+ and a fisheye. soon after that, in munich, i stumbled onto a store with the lomo stuff and bought an octomat as well. that meant that i was schlepping a bag around with no less than four cameras in it at any given moment. that was madness. and it tapered off a bit (i don't carry the lomo cameras around anymore as much as i probably should). but it was mostly because i discovered through the viewfinder photography or TtV, as it's usually called around the internet. and that called for, yes, you guessed it, another camera. one which has a viewfinder large enough to use your DSLR to take a picture of that viewfinder. it helps if you mask it off somehow to make it dark enough for your DSLR to autofocus (you'd need extra arms to hold it all if you didn't use autofocus).

but, in case this is all gobbledy-gook, allow me to back up and explain.

my diana+ (and my rockin' pilgrim sunglasses)

first the lomography thing. lomography is a photo trend wherein people take old cameras made by the "lomo" people or holga or other old russian (read: soviet) cameras in general (why oh why didn't i buy some of those when i was in russia in '94?). these were cheap plastic cameras made and sold in the 50s and onward. they are extremely simple and have all sorts of light leaks and quirks which make for some really interesting and unpredictable photos. you can add to the effect by loading them with slide film (preferably expired) and then "cross-processing" it in the chemicals for regular film. you might have seen "cross-process" effects in Photoshop or Lightroom presets that are called this. they often given a bluish or reddish cast to the photos. but you can get it naturally by using an old fashioned film camera and cross-processing.

what got me intrigued about the lomo thing was an exhibition i saw in manila with displays of photos that a whole army of lomo fanatics took during one day at the wonderful serendra shopping centre at manila's fort bonifacio. the way of displaying multiples of the photos in big expanses was just so cool, as were the colors that you get using cross-processed expired slide film:

photo exhibit in manila

who wouldn't fall in love with this?

now the diana+ and the real holgas all use 120 film, but the fisheye and my octomat use ordinary 35mm film. here are some of the pictures i've taken with my lomo cameras, as well as a cheap penguin-shaped camera that came with some candy (those are funnily enough, some of the best ones).

fisheye sabin

diana+ - double exposure and film not advanced

expired slide film - cross-processed

penguin candy camera

expired slide film - cross-processed

octomat

from one shutter depression, this takes 8 photos over 2 seconds

expired 35mm slide film - cross processed

diana + - shot of cameras on the table

including the cyber-shot that's in the sony-ericsson phone

and our old SLR Canon AE-1 program (a classic)

if you want to see some really awesome lomography, check out my friend liane's photostream on flickr. she really knows what she's doing. me, i'm just playing around. some of her photos were part of that exhibit in manila that got it all started for me. 

for lomo enthusiasts, the beauty is in the unpredictability. film that doesn't advance, light leaks, double exposures. all of the "mistakes" are what makes it fabulous. and there's something really appealing in that. a chaos that i'm drawn to. plus, it's like the old days where you actually take your pictures in to be developed and have to wait for them. awesome. there's something that just feels good about waiting (however impatiently one might do that). we don't wait often enough for gratification these days.

which brings me to TtV photography. in a way, you get some of the appeal of the lomography thing...unpredictable, grainy, out-of-focus shots, but with instant gratification, since you actually take them with your DSLR.

the first camera i tried out the TtV thing with was this beauty:

and after reading a few tutorials online, i fashioned this contraption and took some pictures:

and took this:

the only editing i tend to do with TtVis cropping, because when you download your pictures, they look like this:

but otherwise, i leave them alone because what you want is the blurriness, the dirt that's on the viewfinder on the old camera and the generally speaking, the quirks. with this really old camera (it's from 1901), i love the shape of the viewfinder, but most of the "right" cameras for TtV photography are square, like it comes out with my rolleicord, which was the next acquisition. since i wanted to do "real" TtV photography. the problem is that i haven't really been able to try it out properly until yesterday because it's been so cloudy and you need good light for TtV.

for my rolleicord, i made a contraption out of a box that a bottle of calvados came in. i painted the inside of the box with matte black paint, then secured it at the right size around the camera with a couple of pieces of duct tape:

my rolleicord and my contraption

rolleicord with contraption in place

picture by sabin of me taking a TtV picture with my Nikon D60

with the rolleicord, my pictures look like this before i crop/straighten them:

and like this after:

it looks like i've applied all sorts of processing, but i haven't done any at all, aside from the crop & straighten. that's what's cool to me about TtV--getting the processing effects naturally. i've been a little fed up lately with some of the over-processed photography i see out there. some part of me feels it's dishonest, at the same time as i am strangely drawn to it, because it's FUN to process your photos. this way, with TtV, i can satisfy both parts of my divided personality--the naturalist and the geek who loves software and gadgetry.

the beauty is that you don't HAVE to pay $300 for a used rolleicord TLR to do TtV photography, you can pick up an argus 75 or a kodak duaflex, which is what most people out there are using. you should be able to find one at a flea market for $10-25 (they made tons of them). i have yet to try my $10 brownie 620 , but there will be other days of sunshine and i expect it will work just fine too. you also don't have to have a macro lens for your DSLR, you just have to experiment and get your contraption the right length so your kit lens will do the autofocus thing.

so, what are you waiting for?

friday fun

it was indeed a Summer of Fun for sabin in the US with her cousins owen and finn.  she got home monday and although she seems to be suffering from some withdrawal from all of the fun activities which renders her a wee bit crabby, we are happy to have her home.

her vocabulary has improved greatly and while she didn't exactly acquire an iowa accent, she's clearly much, much more comfortable in english. 

i had some fun lomo-izing some of the Summer of Fun pictures on dumpr.net ...

happy weekend everyone!

a new obsession!

took this picture this afternoon of my flea market purchase the other day. the zinc watering can, which looks marvelous, leaked like a sieve, so i planted a hydrangea in it.

then, i went here and i lomo-ized it. i think i'm in love. and you can dump them straight into your flickr! 

how totally cool is that?!?!?!

lazy sunday

it's very quiet around here this weekend since our pookalakka headed off to chicago. she arrived safely and is having a wonderful time, which is being documented here if you are interested.

it has left us actually wondering a bit what to do with ourselves, although there is always something to get on with in all of the various projects around the house and the garden. this morning, we went over to a flea market that we hadn't visited in awhile. we weren't looking for anything in particular and i took my camera along, in case there were any photo opportunities.

i found these pretty pastel colored teacups. i didn't buy any, but i did take a few pictures of their sorbet goodness.

what i did find was a true treasure! 24 rolls of expired--VERY EXPIRED (in 1990-91) 120 film! some of it is even slide film! 5 kr. per roll.  the guy surely thought he had found a real sucker in someone who actually wanted that film. and i thought he was pretty much a sucker to let it go so cheap!  my diana+ will be happy for a long time on this!! and it just might be time to acquire a holga!

when we drive across the upper midwest on our trips to the US, we always stop at the various antique malls along the way--they are a notch or two above the flea market level--generally things are well displayed and the treasures are not so few and far between as they can be in a flea market.

but there is something about flea markets. i do love to visit them, but there are times when i feel it gives me a mild depression. there is something a bit sad about so many cast-off things in one place. things that once meant something to someone, someone who is likely gone now. china, glassware, old furniture, moth-eaten fur coats. i have to be in the right mood to go in search of treasures in such a place. and of course, they can be found. and what is trash to one is treasure to another (my expired film as a case in point). 

hope you all had a lovely, lazy weekend as well.

fisheye love

my very helpful friend lee taught me how to reverse those negative fisheye shots in photoshop (easy peasy--[ctrl I]), so here they are:

gumball machine

shoe shop

beautiful swan

and my fave mailbox shot

all were taken with expired fuji sensia 100
cross-processed in C41 chemicals

i just completely love the purpley pinks that came out on this set. it must be the magic of the expired film with the cross-processing. i love, love, love it!!! must go outside and take more.

lomovisions from dawn 'til dusk

for any of you who might have your interest piqued in lomography, i wanted to link to this article from last sunday's inquirer magazine in the philippines. it's a feature story on the lomography exhibit that i saw when i was in manila earlier this month (which i wrote about here).

my friend lee, who has been helping me out as i find my way with my fun lomo cameras, was one of the photographers whose pictures are part of the exhibit. it was such an expiring exhibition that it got me into a totally new hobby! i love when something like that happens! and i can't wait 'til i have enough pix for my own lomowall!

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.

this is how i feel...

...reading haruki murakami's wind-up bird chronicles...

a bit blurry and possibly even double-exposed...

but the colors are brilliant...

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!