The Lomo film returns...

Yesterday I dropped my lomo film in to the shop for processing and today got it back (and spent the whole afternoon trying to figure out how to scan the negatives onto the computer!).
SO, here are a few of the results. Some research will be needed over the next few days, into tips on how to take a better lomo pic as I have a few issues to deal with...


First of all, some of the photos look quite dull and overexposed. I'm not sure which setting I should be using for cloudy/sunny days so I'll need to have a look at that.
Because it was a Cross processed slide film, I expected brighter, more over exaggerated colours. I will have to look into why that didn't occur with my photos.


Another dilemma was multiple exposures. They didnt seem to work very well (or at all). Is it that you have to get the right light, or contrasting colours/tones to achieve this? We will see.



What makes a vignette occur? How do I get more or less of one?

I shall seek the answers tomorrow...

More cameras

We'll I was away for my Grandads funeral a few weeks ago and Dad said "here we found this and thought you might like it". It was a 1933 Six-20 Target Hawkeye Box camera. It takes 620 film which is hard/expensive to get these days, and I have no idea if anyone around here processes them.
Then I got to Gizzy and Dad says "here I've got this one too.." and pulls out a Brownie Starlet which looks really cool. Dad was looking it up online and I said it will be from the 1950's in has that 50's look about it. After dads awesome online searching skills of not being able to find the camera for quite sometime, we discovered it was infact made in 1956. It takes 127 film and has 4x4cm images. 127 is not too hard to get and developing only is reasonably priced so I may have to try this one out. It's such a styley, little thing and would be fun to play with. I might even try some 35mm film modifications...that could be interesting.

I've taken about a 3rd of the roll on my Holga at the moment. Cant wait to see the results!

Lomography for real!

Well the other day I was looking through the fashion mag that comes weekly with the newspaper, and I noticed that a shop was selling replica Lomography cameras. I was like hey cool and went to inspect the website and to look up lomo cameras as I didn't realise you could get them these days. Anyway I couldn't believe it when I saw the 'Diana' lomo camera..I used to play with one when I was little! It was just hanging out in the toy box so was considered a toy. The top is pale green, the bottom half black with a rough texture. I remember this little red round thing on the back at the bottom, i'm not sure what it is exactly but I remember I used to press it like it was a button. I remember its little metal switch/s(?) too.

But as for that camera, who knows where it is these days. Is it still at Dad's place in amongst the toys or was it thrown away at some stage? I have no idea.

Originals like that are a lot more expensive to buy than the replicas. And also have the misfortune of taking a 120 film. So buying another one of those (or even finding and using the old one) was out of the question as it would be too expensive to use.
Luckily I discovered some that take a 35mm film. They look a bit different to the originals but in the long run would be cheaper. Cheap to buy and cheap to use (or as cheap as a film camera can be anyway).



So...in the end I decided to buy a 'Holga' which isn't the same as the old one but the picture seems to be a bit more to my liking. I've heard they are more sturdy than Dianes too. Now all I have to do is wait for it to arrive! It's going to be weird using a film camera again! I know I've only had digitals since 2005..so 5 years of my 18 odd years of owning cameras...but I'm really gonna have to get used to using film again! No playback...who knows what you will get? But that was the exciting thing about using film! I loved the surprise of getting the photos back... And the thing about Lomography is it's creative and arty so doesn't have to be perfect.

Cant wait!

Wedding Photography

Well I've been a bit slack over the winter (although I do have a few things I'll have to put up at some stage), but now it's spring and it's time to get back into it.
Yesterday I went to an afternoon course on wedding photography. There were 19 other girls on the course plus a 4 models (a fake bride and groom for single shots, and a bride and groom that were actually a married couple for the couple shots)

We learnt a lot about using the light available inside and outside so you don't have to use a flash. I didn't really know anything about using light to begin with so it was good. We also learnt about posing people so they look natural, and also to get rid of unwanted features like fat bulges and unwanted shadows.

The people taking the course were from Perspectives Photography. They're the company who take amazing photos of brides 'trashing' their wedding dress (eg: swimming in it in a river, rolling in the sand etc).

www.perspectivesphotography.co.nz

So here are a few of the photos I took...

More Lomo

I was having so much fun using my new learnt technique on photos and tried out some other ideas I thought might look good...


Here's Ferndus and Mini with Lomo style applied plus Black and White. It makes the feeling of the image quite dramatic.




Taken at Steve's army training also Lomo style with an emerald filter added which also gives a sense of drama rather than the fact that the uni mog was just towing the gun back to base.




And one more shot of Natalie I took with only lomo applied which worked nicely. I think it's my favourite photo in this style.



Heres the Original....

Old School

I was looking through a website of New Zealand photography and I was wondering what filters or settings (or film if that's the case)that is used for some styles of the photos that were on there. Its a look that you see around sometimes especially in fashion magazines or those odd mags where people are just lying around and doing weird things (arty types of mags I think, anyway I don't understand them).
So I typed into Google 'how do you make photos look old' and the first thing that came up was the technique I was looking for. Although it wasn't a photography technique at all...
Actually it started off with a cheap Russian made camera called a Lomo. It would take photos that looked a bit different (especially when the film was developed in the wrong chemical). It was a bit of a craze to do this in the 90's.
Apart from using one of those cameras the effect can be created by using (you guessed it!) Photoshop. Yay! And it's really easy too.

Here's the tutorial I followed....

http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-digital-photos-look-like-lomo-photograph

And here's some examples of the technique...


This was my first attempt using a picture I took while taking photos for the 2010 Auckland Photography competition a few weeks ago...




This is a photo Mel took of Natalie which I experimented on...



Here's a mushroom I took when I was at the Arboretum...



I still need some more practice with my own settings so the photos aren't too bright or whatever the case may be. I reckon a warming filter would give it an older look...

My new Polarising Filter

I finally decided on which filter to get and bought one on Ebay. I decided to go for the Kenko Pro 1 DMC circular polarising filter. I did some tests with and without the filter...

This is the photo without the filter, the settings are at F/5, 1/800 and ISO 400.



This is the photo with the filter. The settings are the same.


The sky is still a bit bright but there was quite a lot of cloud cover.
Here are some examples using the polarising filter with only a few clouds...

Its tricky finding the right combination, I'm going to need more practice at it. This one the building is all right but the cloud is a bit bright. The settings were f/3.5, 1/1000 and ISO 400.


This one the sky is good but the landscape below is a bit dark. Settings: F/8, 1/320 and ISO 200.