Cinestill at the beach

rolling waves of sand

After seeing some of the wonderful results on 52 Rolls, I thought I would try using Cinestill too. I loaded  it up in my Olympus XA and headed out for a weekend at the beach. I think I like the results. I am not immediately in love with everything on the roll. There were quite a few shots that were very grainy. I am not used to shooting with 800 ISO film so that may be the issue. I did, however, like this shot. So there you go. 

Happiness

While we were in Amsterdam, we decided to spend King's Day in Rotterdam where Inge took us on a tour of her home town. The first stop was the  Urban Forest/Cube Houses. I was really excited to see these in person. The museum was open so we got to go inside of one to see what it would be like to live in one of these unique houses. I am torn as to whether or not I would want to live in one. I love it, but kind of think it would be impractical. However, if I did have the opportunity to live in one of these houses I think I would jump at the chance, no question. 

I shot this photo specifically because of the "happiness" poster in the window. I couldn't believe it when I saw it hanging there. I have wanted one of these posters for a long time. They are drawn by Gavin Aung, creator of Zen Pencils. I am a big fan of his work. He draws cartoons of inspirational quotes. The "Happiness" poster is a drawing of and a quote from Buddha:

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."

 

And there is not much more to say about that. 

This was taken with my Canon Elan ii and Arista 100. Developed in Diafine. 

Amsterdam street food

This is another shot with the Olympus XA in Amsterdam. When I used up the roll of Afga Precisa I bought some Tri-x to see how that would fare in this camera. I love the results! I am not used to using a rangefinder and tend to find them a little awkward, but the XA was pretty easy to get used to. 

I've been carrying it around with me this week in my purse, working on a film swap roll and I am falling more and  more in love with this little thing every day. It's the perfect size to carry around for everyday use. I bought a couple rolls of Cinestill film and am going to run that through it and can't wait to see the results of that little experiment. 

I'll share more of of these XA Amsterdam street photos in future posts. 

Olympus XA and x-pro

This is a photo taken in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. On King's day we decided to escape the crazy and take the train into Inge's home town. She and her husband gave us a tour of this beautiful city. While we were there she gave me an Olympus XA that she'd picked up at a camera swap and some Afga Precisa slide film.  I was so excited! 

This camera is so fun. It will be something I go to again and again, I'm sure. 

However, I am still uncertain about cross processing slide film. It seems like whenever I do it my experience is less than stellar. None of my photos look like this. I'm never blown away by the results. My feeling is more of frustration. I think it is that I am having trouble scanning cross processed negatives. my scanner's software does odd things to the colors and I'm not tech savvy enough to figure out how to fix that. 

The lesson of the group shot

Yesterday I spent the entire day meditating with this very wonderful group of people. We all decided that we wanted a photo at the end of the day to mark this occasion: it was the first real retreat of our little local sangha. Sometime in the middle of the day I remembered that I brought my film camera loaded with black and white film. I was wanting to use up the roll on my walk to the retreat so I could have something to develop. I was delighted that I would be able to capture this moment on film!

When we gathered together for the shot I decided to take a photo with my iPhone first.  Here is the shot that I took: 

In the iPhone photo everyone is smiling and happy and it truly depicts the way we were all feeling after a day of meditation together. After I took this photo I took two more with my film camera. When I developed the photos from my film camera and scanned them the only shot that was useable was the one at the top of this post. It's not a bad photo but the faces are more stoic and not as smiley. 

I thought about what I might have done as the photographer to make the photos different and I remembered that for the iPhone photo I made a joke. I told them to "say whiskey." Everyone laughed because for the situation it was kind of out of context and maybe a little irreverent and our group laughs at irreverence.  For the film photos they had been standing  there for a few more moments. The joke was over and everyone was ready to move on.

These are some things to keep in mind the next time I take a group shot. Maybe the first photo is the best? And maybe I should have a few more jokes up my sleeve for the second and third photos...

Sakura

One of the things I love about my town is that it is quiet at night. I live in a small town about 45 minutes away from Portland and I love the stillness of it in the evenings. The downside of this is that there isn't much to do here in on a Saturday night. Often, my husband and I will go for walks. This past Saturday our walk took us to the local Goodwill - the only business (besides the bars) that is open until 9:00 on a Saturday night. 

I made a beeline straight to the discarded camera section. It is bin in the very back of the store filled with all kinds of sad, old, electronics. Every once in awhile I will find something interesting. There were quite a few good things Saturday but the camera that I came away with was a Canon Sureshot.

I took it out for a spin yesterday and am rather delighted with the results of this little camera. It didn't do well with close up shots (I tried a few portraits of my husband and they were blurry) but it did pretty well otherwise. You can read a great review here on Jim Grey's blog "Down The Road." 

Here is a shot I too on Hawthorne Blvd  in Portland. 

Film used was Arista 100 and it was developed in Diafine. 

Wahclella Falls

11575367373_db92c9f432_o.jpg

My brother found an Electro 35 at an estate sale and offered it to me. I don’t have a rangefinder camera so I accepted. I had to do some doctoring on the camera, but not much. The camera was in surprisingly good shape. At first I wasn’t happy with the results using black and white film but a few people suggested I try color film before I closet the camera forever. I did and I think I am falling in love with it. On Thanksgiving I brought it with me on a hike to Wahclella Falls in the Columbia Gorge.  I love what this camera does with Portra 160.

Camera: Yashica Electro 35
Film: Portra 160
ISO: 160
Dev: C-41 by lab
Scan: Epson V500