1/2 and 1/2 (O Holga, Holga, you slay me!)

Okay, so it has been a while since I have updated my profile. My pictures have been turning out pretty well, and we finally have new film! This makes life much easier, because the old film was simply screwed up. In most of my pictures this year, there have been what I like to call "amoebas" anywhere and everywhere on my film. Thankfully, we have new film and that problem is gone, for now. So everything from now on should be amoeba-less, except for this post and the next. It has been pretty frustrating to get good prints, and then have them ruined. I still like my pictures so I am going to post them anyways.

The second half of this post is taken from a camera called "the Holga". I like to think she is a rather large, eastern european woman with a thick accent and a nasty snarl. She doesn't like me that much. It took me three times to get negatives with some sort of a picture on them. She is super light sensitive, so she really only comes outside at the height of the sun. She lives in a cave for the rest of the day. I became fed up with her, and decided to shoot in the studio with a flash. This took care of my light problem and I shot some decent pictures. The assignment was "Surrealism", and this was my best crack at it. I took record sleeves and replaced face's with the records. It was somewhat clever, and I take pride in them. Really, they are just some funny pictures with my friends, but they did the job.

What's To Come / A Preview If You Will...

Alright, so, I have my pictures printed from Christmas Tree Cutting, a Ciraulo tradition. They will be first to bat in the next week, but on deck (the assignment I am going to start working on), my pictures from Cambria. Our family spends a weekend in Cambria every weekend with our lovely family friends, the Nolings. We relax, eat, relax, and take a walk/hike every once in a while out by the "bluffs" as my mother would say. Anyways, I took some pictures while we were there, which happened to have looked spectacular through my lense. Hopefully, they will turn out that way. I also started dabbling with some night photography, which has always frustrated me. To give you some pictures to chew on, I did take some pictures with my mom's camera. I love her Canon. So, here they are. Some "artistic" if you will, and some of us just being us. The night ones are without a tripod mind you, which would have made the images sharper. Update: just developed the Cambria pictures, they "look great". can't tell quite yet. soon enough!

Travelocity

You know those commercials for Travelocity, where the gnome is taken all around the world...well that is what this assignment is, except, replace a gnome for a skateboard (in my case). The idea was to take the "object" to different places, and I decided to take my skateboards around throughout Danville. I actually just finished sending an e-mail back to Sector 9-the company of my skateboard-and I think they may be featured on their website or (somewhere). I guess we will just have to wait and see. Enjoy!

"Overdeveloped Learning"

It is not that these pictures are great, because they sure are not. The thing that I appreciate about them is that it showed me I can print close to anything. Not that I am going to produce great work all the time (which would be my goal), but this assignment proved to me that I can get at least something out of my faulty negatives. Anyways, the story goes that someone turned up the water temperature in the developing room and so my film was overdeveloped because it messed with my times. I also had a bunch of (stuff-I guess that is the best word? maybe amoebas?) get on my negatives, so for me to produce something out of this film was quite the effort. So, although they are not ground-breaking, they are meaningful to me. I was printing on F 2.8 for 30 seconds or above. To give you an idea of what the means, its is like wanting your popcorn to pop in 3 minutes, but instead, it takes close to 3 hours. Most outside pictures will be printed on F 8 or maybe 11, even 5.6, so for me to be printing on 2.8..it was a rather horrible experience. Sure enough, I braved the dark room and produced some pictures, which turned out to some degree. Film photography is not as simple as snapping the picture, grabbing the cord, plugging it in, and turning the camera on. It is an extensive process and I am just beginning to grasp it. It gives you some appreciation for that one guy, oh I don't know, ANSEL ADAMS.

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