Film 365 – Day 21: January 11, 2014

It was a fantastic little day wandering around the Grandview Lodge resort area, walking along the many paths through the trees and by the lake. There were company sponsored activities (such as board game tournaments) and many people to talk to. John and I took a few hours out of the day to walk around the lake by ourselves, and recharge mentally. I was still photographing with the Nikon FG-20 and the Ilford HP5+ film. I’m still not thrilled with how grainy the film ended up being, and how some of the photos turned out. After I finished up with that roll, I loaded up a roll of Lomography XPro. I have learned that this is really color slide film, but packaged so that it looks like it could be developed as c41 film. What this does is distort the colors. This is actually a pretty common practice, but many film processing places won’t cross process film for various reasons. So it ends up usually not being the cheapest experiment. My local lab where I take my color film doesn’t usually cross process film, but because I hadn’t tried this film before, and because the woman that works there likes me, she developed it as c41 anyway. I must say, I really don’t like the way the colors come out with this film. I have had other slide film cross processed before, and have gotten pretty cool results, but not this time. I have not yet tried all of the Lomography films yet, but I have tried a few. Sadly, I think this film will be added to the ‘not trying again’ list.

Through this 365 project, I have been taking photos of everything with my cell phone as well as my film camera. I’m doing this for many reasons.

1. Because I am often developing and scanning the film multiple days after taking the photo, it can sometimes get a little tricky to remember when I took each photo. Having a digital record of this helps.

2. I can record the photos in my ‘Day One’ journal app, document the camera settings, and then have a record of what the weather was like where I was taking the photo.

3. The cell phone photo gives me the geolocation data of where I was photographing that day, and I am a bit obsessed with location data right now.

That said, I won’t always do this with my posts, but this time I am posting many of my cell phone photographs as well as the film photos. The cell phone photos come after all of the film photos. Honestly, I like them much better. I know this could be fodder for all of the many arguments over cell phone photography, film vs. digital and all that. But I am really quite tired of all of those arguments. I am experimenting with so many different types of film over the course of this project, many I have not tried before, and many that are quite expired already. I am not going to like every type of film I try, but this project will help me figure out what types of film I love. The fact that I ended up with two rolls of film I didn’t really like on this trip is just unfortunate, but not the end of the world. I’m not giving up using that little Nikon camera, even though I do whine about scanning 35mm film! So here you go, many photos, in many film types and formats.

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Poinsettia flower in the snow

30˚ and hazy

Nikon FG-20 camera

Ilford HP5+ film developed in Ilfosol 3.

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Path to the lake

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One lonely Christmas ornament.

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Smallworld!

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Walking on a frozen lake, looking back at the shore and the snow covered trees.

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Ditto

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Ditto again.

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And again.

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Pine needles covered in frost.

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Tree bark (with the Lomography XPro film)

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Path light

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The cake table in day light.

And now the cell phone photos:

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The house on the hill

I mentioned in my last post (almost 1 month ago…sorry!) that John and I were moving.

It finally happened.

I survived.

Everything is starting to get settled.

There are not as many boxes anymore.

And we now live in this beautiful little house on a hill.

the house on the hill

 

With yards filled with day lilies and hostas…

 

 

hostas

and a large front window that looks out over the world…

 

 

 

front window

 

It all seems quite perfect!

We are working our way through the long part of settling in, but already it seems to feel so much more like a home. Our home.

Updates will be much more frequent now. I have a lot of things to tell you all about!

Until next time,

~Peace~

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A week in Instagrams

It was a busy week. There were so many bits and moments that I am still mulling over and don’t quite know how to put into words. But I have these photos and many more…..

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On Saturday I stopped at my Grandpa’s ….on Thanksgiving he said he was slowly working on scanning in wedding photos from when he and my Granny were married. I offered to help and said I would pick up the album. When I went to get it, instead of only one album, I found two boxes full of albums and photos waiting for me. I have a lot of work ahead of me….but don’t mind. Every time I go through that stack of books I find something else, something amazingly cool and special. This will be a long process, but I’m sure you will see bits of it here.

365 project catch up day

It has been very quiet around this blog lately. That has mostly been due to how busy I was preparing for Craftstravaganza. (There is a post on that coming very soon!) In the mean time, here is the catch up on my 365 projects!

April 24th
Instant 365 #26
A cold day, looking up at the bare trees. Spring will be here someday!
(I already posted the cell phone pic for this day.)

April 25th
Instant 365 #27
Spring! At least it felt like it that day! We spent the evening on the new patio at Psycho Suzie’s with friends.

April 26th

Instant 365 #28
Sunshine and another deck photo.

Cell phone 365 #28
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This was actually inspired by tweets from a couple of friends, but still very appropriate for the day. I spent 10 hours working on getting prints laid out in my portfolio to present at Craftstravaganza and was surrounded by notes and paper scraps.

April 27th
I don’t know what happened to me this day. I just didn’t have a cell phone portrait.
None of my instant photos turned out either. I guess it was just a blank kind of day!

April 28th

Instant 365 #29
Ok, so I take photos of my deck whenever my instant cameras haven’t been working particularly well. It is easier to go outside where there is better light and make sure it is just the conditions you were trying to take a photo in that weren’t that great, and that there isn’t actually something wrong with your camera!

Cell phone 365 #29
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What else do I do before a big event but dye my hair again? :)

April 29th
Instant 365 #30
The Fine Arts building where Craftstravaganza will be taking place.

I don’t seem to have a cell phone 365 from this day either…

April 30th
I don’t have an instant photo from this day. The biggest reason being I didn’t bring any instant cameras with me to Craftstravaganza, and I left and came home when it was too dark to take a photo with the films I had loaded. 

Cell phone 365 #30
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Craftstravaganza and Roller Derby day!  I took this at the convention center while we were watching the derby.

May 1

Instant 365 #31
Yeah, I know, another deck photo….

Cell phone 365 #31
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in bed by the light of an iPad

May 2nd

Instant 365 photo #32
Ok, I promise, no more deck light photos after this!

Cell phone 365 #32
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There had to be a self portrait with my bff :)

May 3rd

Instant 365 #33
The silhouette of the by Alexandra press at MCBA.

Cell phone 365 #33
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some bedtime reading.

May 4th

I can’t find the cell phone 365 photo from this day! However, I did take an instant self portrat:

Instant 365 #34
Hello! And May the Fourth be with you ;)

I’ve been having some issues with my cell phone which I think is to blame for a few of those missed days (I only remember completely forgetting one self portrait!) but I’m not going to dwell on it. I’m going by the photo # count, so it will just take me a little bit longer to get to the 365 mark!

Until next time,
~Peace~

A catch up on photos

Today it was almost a relief to snuggle up in my chair in front of my computer and get down to business checking projects off of my to-do list. 

Saturday I volunteered for an event called ‘Making Memories’ (This was all I could find about it on the web: http://www.ysa.org/grants/grantee/zimmerman-high-school though hopefully there will be more posted soon!) There were four photographers total, and many other volunteers, and together we did family photo sessions for about 75 families that can’t afford family photos. My mom came with to help me out, and together we worked with 9 different families. It was pretty amazing! Now on to processing all of those photos and getting them back to the families.

Since I had all of my photo equipment jammed in the trunk of my car this weekend, I also set up a little photo studio at my parent’s restaurant and did family photos for one of our cooks. You can tell it is spring when the family photo sessions start up again!

I have kept up so far on both of my 365 photo projects, and honestly, they are helping me keep my sanity when most of what I’m doing is digital processing right now. Without further ado, here is my weekend in photos:

Cell phone self portrait day #5

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I have an Android Nexus 1 phone, and the best photo app I have found by far is a little app called Vignette. It has a lot of film type effects, and is just generally fun. The best is that you can set it to random and be completely surprised by the effects that come out…hence, smurf Jes. I kind of like it though, so it’s staying in my project.

Cell phone self portrait #6
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Self portraits don’t always include your face.

Cell phone photo #7
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Me, today, in my computer chair, wearing my ‘I believe in peace bitch’ t-shirt purchased at a Tori Amos concert. It was a good shirt for today.

Instant photo day 4
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On Saturday we had to stop at the State Fair Grounds to pick up some fliers for Crafstravaganza. We drove around a bit so I could find something to take a photo of. I love the All You Can Drink Milk booth, mostly because my mom used to work there when it was 5¢ for all you could drink. 

Instant photo day 5
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One of my favorite signs of spring is when we are driving in my husband’s car and it is warm enough to open the sun roof. Sunday was the first day we were riding together when it was open. I took this through said sunroof as we were driving down our street.

Instant photo day 6
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The clouds were kind of amazing today – so I stepped out on the deck and took this looking up.

These 3 instant photos are taken with the new color film from The Impossible Project. I love it! 

Until next time,
~Peace~

Tomorrow is a big day

My cameras are packed and batteries charged for a big family photo shoot tomorrow. There is not much else to report, but I have kept up on my 365 photos, so here they are:

Cell phone Self portrait #4:

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Instant photo day 3:

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My russian doll set that I got in Japan. Shot with Px100FF color film.

Tomorrow will be a bit crazy, but I promise to blog about it later.
Until next time,
~Peace~