What is now?
- Now is night.
What is this?
- This is a tree.
If I turn around the tree vanishes
- Now is still now. This is still this. Here is still here.
How do you know?
- Because I’m still me.
Really? Are you sure?
From The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman
our neighbour. seen most mornings on the roof of our conservatory, looking down on us with meh.
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what are your weekend plans?
playing with the holga recently has me all excited about playing with old film and old cameras
i have 3 rolls of expired (in 1970!) film in my fridge and have plans for it now…
one roll is going to go straight into an old box brownie (that travelled with me to squam to do hula’s ttv class) and one roll i’m going to re-spool on to a 120 spool and put it in a holga. the third will go in whichever one gives me the best (if any) results.
on a recent trip to edinburgh, i found this beauty (a kodak baby brownie special) in a vintage shop. it takes 127 film – not something i just pop down to the local camera store for (or take a roll in for processing).
thanks to the power of the internets, i have found a place in the uk that sells 127 film. i’ve found another company called plastic magpie (i love them for their name alone) who also sell film (but sadly don’t have what i need) that will carefully process it for me.
am i gonna?
yes i’m gonna.
any of you still have film cameras you use regularly? tried any expired film? will you share your results?
it started with coffee in bed and the sleepy promise of a lie-in tomorrow.
i had burrowed so far down in the bed during the night that my feet were hanging over the end. i don’t know why i think of this now.
horror – about the amount of work not done yesterday. wondering how on earth i’m going to keep up. surely, someone will catch me out, trip me up at work and speak the words aloud that i currently feel deep “she’s a fraud everyone! she has no idea what she’s doing!”
…yet it doesn’t come.
this tuesday has me dreaming of faraway places and a photo project to complete before i turn 40 in august. i am excited. and gently chiding myself for dreaming up yet another project before i have finished the current ones.
i’m grateful it’s not monday – i shudder to think of a repeat of yesterday, though dinner last night was nice, and the lovely Amanda has generously gifted me her holga.
it’s not wednesday either – that middle of the week day that i’ve started using to do some study
it’s not limited edition – there’s one every week and it’s always in the same place. there is some comfort to be taken in that i suppose
i’ve got no films to collect, no amazing literary predictions to make, no announcements, no secret plans that need revealing… this too brings me a quiet sort of delight.
there’s just the cycle home (in what looks like rain) and some baking to do for anzac day. I need to phone my sister to say happy birthday.
what’s seducing you?
+ roll in a day +
give me an opportunity to play and i’ll usually take it
give me an opportunity to play and make photographs and i’ll always be taking it
the lovely jeanine asked if i wanted to do roll in a day with her and of course i said yes. i love doing stuff with her (in case you hadn’t already figured that out!)
i borrowed her holga as i’ve never used one before and wanted to try it out.
using something without the slr was a challenge and my framing was out for the whole roll. the compositions show more in the lower portions of all the photographs than i would have liked – something to remember if i play with this camera again… compose through the viewfinder, then move the camera up slightly!
i forgot to roll the film on after making the first photograph (a film reproduction of this one made with my iPhone), so ended up with a double exposure and one of the photographs didn’t turn out at all, as i suspected it wouldn’t – it was taken indoors and was far too dark for the wee camera to interpret. anything taken through a window, or inside just didn’t have enough light.
still, the results were good enough that i’d like to do this again.
anyone got a holga lying around anywhere they no longer use?
… i’d happily take it off your hands!
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more: a few more photos here
play: today is another round of a roll in a day. i’ve borrowed jeanine’s holga to play along
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i love her. we have fun together. we both love film and play. so i couldn’t think of anyone more fantastic to do an experiment with than jeanine.
the roll, in her camera, was filled in montreal.
i was going to then shoot the same roll in new zealand. but it didn’t arrive in time.
so, the same roll, in my camera, was filled again in london.
and so began our northern exposures: two cameras, two photographers, one roll of film.
i’m so so happy with the results i feel giddy. 22 perfect double-exposures… i even love that the edges don’t match.
they feel, to me, like we were totally tuned in to each other. like double-exposure zen masters.
we’re already planning some more.
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also: love photography, maths and graphs? check out nikki graziano’s ‘found functions’. stunning.
polaroid sx-70, impossible colour film
for a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin… but there was always some obstacle in the way. something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid… at last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
- alfred d’souza
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