Continued Lomojoy

Just updating on my continued analogue joy. I feel like I have entirely rediscovered photography, with going back to film; it feels so good. I also recently picked up an old Canon EOS film camera body for £1.99 on ebay! Utter bargain, and I can use one of my DSLR lenses with it. I’ve put a black and white film in it and am using it slowly, on nothing important, as I am planning on getting back into developing my own black and white films, after taking one to a lab recently that I thought came out terribly, really grey and low in contrast and I know I can do a better job myself. On the other hand it may be me of course, but I think the film name on the negs looks a little pale so it might be the processing. I had to PS up the contrast to stop them being blaaaah.

I’ve shot a few more colour films on my Diana and am loving it. Got some good shots and had a few instances of things not coming out- some star trails there were no sign of, and some multiple flash night time long exposures that didn’t show up at all. Not really sure why. There’s also the odd shot where I failed to take off the lens cap! I’m not used to not looking through the lens!

A couple nights ago I thought I did a successful star trails exposure (yep I really love star trails) and then the next day I think I’d forgotten to wind on so that one may not be OK. Now its going to be super cloudy for a few days so that will have to wait.

I’m pretty pleased with this one. Its handheld for a few seconds hence the blurriness, but it works I think. I like the below too, as it was an unintentional double exposure, forgot to wind on.

Lomojoy

I got my first film back from my Diana yesterday. I was very excited. I miss the waiting-to-see thing. I’ve scanned it all in, and there are some good shots, and lots of weird ones, weird in a what-the-hell-is-that way, not in a weird-good way. Obviously some things went wrong, but it was all experimental anyway, so its OK. Some good ones are of people from a wedding, so I won’t post those, but here’s an OK one of a windmill in Sussex, in/near Clayton. There are two windmills and they’re called Jack and Jill.

After this 35mm film, which I selected the ‘panoramic with sprocket holes’ mask for, I shot a 120 film which I don’t have back yet. I like to feel that by that point I’d learnt some things so there will be better shots on there. The thing with using the mask which shows the sprocket holes is that, if you have a film scanner mask for your scanner, then the 35mm one covers the sprocket hole area, so you lose some, or you use the 120 mask, which means its loose and you have to do one shot at a time like you do with 120 film. This is OK, just time consuming comparatively, as the scanner software will scan 35mm normal-sized frames 12 at once.
At the moment there is an instant film in my Diana, as I got an instant back too. I’m not that impressed with it so far. The first shot was too bright so it barely showed up, and one other came out waaaay too dark, but for no apparent reason. Its seems a bit temperamental and with the price of those films, I don’t think I’ll keep up with it. Here are a few that were alright, though not very interesting.

Starry times

Last night, on my Diana F+, using the pinhole setting, I did a star trails shot. Hopefully. I don’t yet know how the pinhole shots come out I left the shutter open for 70 minutes. I know that the pinhole makes it very wide angle, but I don’t know if I aimed it right. Its hard to judge without a lens to point!

Afterwards, I also tried a digital one. I only left the shutter open for 6 minutes but the camera took longer than that to process the image afterwards! I thought it was crashing. I haven’t had a lot of luck with digital star trails in the past, the battery doesn’t seem to be able to handle really long ones, I’ve left it for a long time before and came back to find the camera dead.
My best ones have been on my Bronica, using medium format film, such as the one below, and the current header photo, both taken years ago.

World In Miniature…

So as I mentioned I went to this old site in St Agnes, and my main desire was to find the old Alice statues. After the only thing we found AT ALL was a big old shoe in the woods (as in, old-woman-who-lived-in-a…) I looked online to find out what had happened to this place, as I had a feeling some of the stuff had moved at some stage. It turns out there were two sites, and the old Alice things and other weird statues were at the other place (in Goonhavern).

This is how they looked the last time I went when it was still open and here are images taken by a chap who went there last year and photographed it in its closed down and abandoned state.

I am desperate to go there with my new Diana capability but I hear that it is being cleared to be changed into something else. Very sad. I must try to get there and find out for myself.

Back, and freshly inspired

So, I haven’t posted in ages. I decided it was a bit pointless, no-one was following as I hadn’t promoted this anywhere and I wasn’t feeling very interesting, and there is always too much else to do. However, since I last posted I have become newly inspired photographically…
I went to an old site of a place called St Agnes World of Miniature with my friend who is a photographer. I took my old Bronica, medium, format camera, which had had a mostly-used film in it for about 2 years, and finished it up. My friend is very creative and inspiring, and we talked a lot about photography and how I had lost the inclination with digital ( don’t get me wrong, digital’s great and I won’t stop using it, but it was darkrooms where my photoigraphic passion lived) and then we went to camera shops and I discovered Holga, Dianas and lomography in general. I was so pleased to discover that there has been a resurgence of film photography and so after that day I spent weeks looking at and dreaming of getting a Diana F+….and a few sales of stuff on ebay later, I have acquired one. I got a deluxe kit with extra lenses and accessories. Its a 120 camera but I got it with a 35 mm back also. This weekend I went away, and I took a 35 mm film. And last night I put in a 120 film, which I have used half of just today. I am absolutely loving it. I will put up some results when I get them! I love waiting for film to be developed…. 😀

Spring

Last week was so hot and springy and it was good to get outside and feel warm and sow seeds and lie in the grass and generally welcome the change of season. Leaves were bursting forth…

blackthorn

…and I found those sweet little flowers which are growing on patches of moss, on granite and deadwood. Waiting for an ID on ispot.

 

More dying

So chemistry gumpf has been keeping me away but in between all that I’ve done a bit more dying.

Below is the Black Cherry-dyed yarn, overdyed with Berry Blue. I think due to there being ties in some places for the dying process, and some places not getting the same amount of exposure to dye as others, I got this lovely streaky effect, which looks really nice when skeined.

I’ve also done some other experimenting. I tried mixing the two colours together and dying it all at once. That produced a much more even colour, a paler burgandy. I wasn’t as keen on that. I also tried dying a skein with twice as much Black Cherry to begin with, then overdying with one amount of Berry Blue. This is scurrently drying on the washing line. Again, due to ties and uneven distribution, it looks good and streaky, though there are more brighter red bits showing through than on the above skein, and the double amount of dying to begin with created a rustier, dare I say brownish red to begin with, rather than a deeper darker red as I hoped. I was warmed about this potential rustiness. I went ahead anyway. Ah well.

Dyed

So I managed to skein another ball and thankfully found only one break. That’s alright I can deal with that. And I’ve dyed it! I used Kool Aid. I bought some a while ago when I found out about it all, and I’ve been kinda fascinated ever since. This yarn is sort of salmony pink and I wanted a deep burgandy. I used one packet of black cherry Kool Aid, as per almost all instructions I’ve read (1 pack per 1 oz of yarn, and these are 1 oz balls), but I got a brightish red which isn’t a world away from its original colour, though the photo here of the original colour is not too correct. So either I overdye it, or try a new colour on another ball. Or maybe the same colour again? Not sure.

Pre-dyeing

In pot while heating- sucked up all the dye pretty quick!

Finished and washed, drying on the washing line.

Sun

I may not really know how to use coordination chemistry to explain how ferrous ammonium phosphate may discolour banana, but man its a nice day today. There is the very first tiny flower on a sad pot of forget-me-nots (I put them in too shallow a container and it has rubbish drainage) and its so hot I sat out the front and ate my lunch of scrumblies. Its the first day of the year that I have done that. There are alsolots of tulip buds beginning.

 

In bad news, some wool I was given from an aunt’s aunt’s loft looks ruined. I had great plans for dying it and knitting Icarus and it was all going to be splendid. Today I began skeining one for dying and found that every several yards it was broken! When I started poking through the ball I found lots of ends 😦 I am quite sad though glad I discovered before beginning to knit with it. Could it have been moths? A couple balls look alright though I will go through them all thoroughly at some point when I have more time (see ferrous ammonium phosphate above) and see what can be salvaged.

O Frabjous Day

This entire weekend has been spent studying. My mind hurts. I ought to have been more organised. Shouldawouldacoulda.