checking out

We’re a week away from getting the keys to our new place and once we have them there’ll be walls to paint and laminate flooring to lay down.
Multiple trips to Ikea, formal stuff to take care of and then hauling all our stuff over, dealing with scared kitties and settling in. We start packing this weekend, so in case I’ll not manage to squeeze in a post or two, see you some time in November!

And as I can’t have a post without pictures, here’s a couple film shots I took with the OM-2N of Dana last weekend (because a week from moving I had nothing better to do than dust off the film equipment and scanner, obviously):

Advertisement

a day at the beach

sea, sand, sun and salt in the air.



perfect.

holga color love

The first color shots out of my Holga are finally done and scanned and I am in love (again). Unfortunately medium format color film is pretty pricey but I will have to splurge on it once in a while I think.
These were all taken at the last rodeo at the barn:


Aching feet after a day’s riding:

Yummy candy for sale:

The oppressive heat we’ve been having has been hard on the horseys as well, with little shade and lots of flies on their pastures:

And, to save the best for last (something I always find very hard to do…anyone seen the movie ‘Remember Me’? I have my dessert first too):

at the barn

I honestly couldn’t think of a fitting title and I didn’t want to call this post ‘even more Holga photos’. But that’s what they are basically, more Holga photos and I am really loving them. The Holga is the camera I take to work (I couldn’t not take a camera, I feel naked without at least one camera in my bag), because it is so lightweight and inconspicious. I have a half hour lunch break during the day, but as I am actually eating lunch during work I can just wander around Cologne in that time. You’ll probably get lots of Holga city shots on here in the coming weeks 😉
Ok, enough rambling, here are the pics, developed at home again:

The barn is one of my favourite places in the world, I can’t even explain why. Some more western shots of my friend:


And a last one that wasn’t actually taken at the barn, but I really like it (it’s called ‘Rainy days call for pretty shoes’):

Today is a bank holiday in Germany, which is why I had time to write this post in the first place. Planned for today is: sewing, horseriding, taking photos and barbecuing, all in bright sunshine 🙂
Hoping you are all having a nice day too!

processing film or: my new holga

A couple of weeks ago I just wouldn’t put it off any longer: I bought a Holga, a chinese toy camera. After a bit of research I decided on getting it directly from Hongkong via Ebay for the incredible price of ca. $20 USD (as usual german shops would have charged at least 3 times as much).
And oh, isn’t she pretty in her kitschy plastic cheapness?

I’d been wanting a Holga for some time but I was put off by having to research where to get it, how to use it, how to work with medium format film and especially how to process/develop film myself. But then I got my OM-2N and was getting back into film anyway. And the black and white photos I got back from the different labs I tried all had one thing in common: they were incredibly bad quality (think grainy, scratchy, blotchy), the labs took ages to make them and there would always be photos (and negatives!) mysteriously missing that were definitely correctly exposed. Top that with a staggering price and processing my b+w film at home has become a necessity.
So I thought, might as well do it thoroughly and go medium format and get a Holga (I am officially a freak).
I got a development tank and the chemicals and read and read and read about the process.
Today was the big day, it was time to process the first roll of film from my Holga! I won’t bore you with the process (I’ll just say I nearly cried when it took me 5 tries to get the film into the reel of the development tank in my semi-dark bathroom, under a dark bed sheet). I am still dumbfounded that after a lot of guesswork concerning development times and such, there is a strip of film drying in my bathroom…and it has pictures on it!!!

Actual, real pictures that are at least semi-correctly exposed! I’m hooked, processing film is my new favourite thing in the world!
See, this is the inverted image, they’ll be real photos!

And how convenient that I now know my Holga leaks light pretty much everywhere…off to buy some black tape tomorrow!
Eventually I would like to try out developing film in Coffee, because it’s more environmentally friendly and even cheaper than chemical developer and… well… it’s cool (can you say freak) 🙂
All in all the process was easier than I thought and I can’t wait to see the photos on paper and to process my next roll!

loving film part 2 – black and white

In between all those colourful, bright digital shots I just have to throw in these black and white photos from my Olympus OM-2N. Not only because they are different but because I am thrilled by how they turned out. It was love at second sight I’ll admit but I am starting to see the huge potential of this small and amazing SLR.


Not to mention that I just get a thrill out of using it…pressing that shutter and especially advancing the film manually is pure joy for me…I’m weird like that 😉


I am pretty suprised at just how contrasty and grainy this 125 ASA film turned out. I shot black and white film with a point and shoot as a teenager and don’t remember them turning out so ‘retro’. But then again I wasn’t using a 30-year old manual SLR so maybe that’s the difference.


I will definitely take the time to get to know this camera better though the prices to develop film are really steep and I’ll have to restrain myself from taking too many pictures.
Don’t worry about the digital photos though, I’ll keep them coming 😉 I have three photoshoots with adorable kids scheduled in the next 2-3 weeks, starting this weekend with 4 toddlers under the age of three!

loving film

I never got around to posting them, but I got my first test roll of film from my Olympus OM-2N scanned a couple of days ago. They’re only a couple of test shots I did when I was hanging out at the barn, but I am so in love with these lovely retro colors. Also I had forgotten how soft film is. We’re so used to tack sharp digital photos that these seem sort of dreamy in comparison.
Sweet baby at the barn:

Don’t even know what I love about this picture but somehow this draws me again and again!


Taking full advantage of the Zuiko 50mm 1.4 lens. Very interesting bokeh I think, definitely different than with my Canon (though my lens there is also 50mm 1.4).

And of course my cats, what would a post on this blog be without them?

I will be going on holiday next week (yay!) so don’t be surprised if things are a bit quiet around here. I hope to be coming home with lots and lots of new pictures for y’all, both film and digital (keeping fingers crossed for good weather!!) 🙂
Also I have been thinking of starting a series of tutorials on how to use a vintage treadle (or how I use my treadle to be specific), very basic things like threading, oiling, changing needles, adjusting tension and stitch length etc. Might be handy if someone buys a treadle without a manual and wonders how to use it. Would anybody actually be interested in that? Let me know!