Category Archives: Lomography

A Long Walk involving Gangs, Swings, Swans, Woods, and Serendipity

A few weeks ago before our present snowy state I took our dogs on a long walk. It was a very frosty, cold, clear, beautiful day.

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From left to right is Abby, Rascal, and Ginger. As you can tell I brought along my Diana plastic lens film camera. I love it. It drives some of my fellow bloggers crazy. Sorry guys and gals, I love it. I love my various digital cameras also.

We started out in the greenbelt. We came upon this

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How come some places get nice graffiti and we get wannabe gang graffiti well hidden away in a greenbelt?

We eventually made it to our neighborhood elementary school. Lots of nice playground equipment here.

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You can’t have too many swings at a school.

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We checked out one of the neighborhood ponds

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It was cold enough that part of it was frozen over. There are a few swans that live permanently here. One is swimming in the distance at the center right section of the photo.

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We took a turn in a loop along some woods bordering the ground of a Cancer Hospital. Here is the serendipity. We found a small decorated tree in the woods.

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There were handmade decorations with names on them hanging in the tree. I have no idea what they are there for or how long they have been there. Just one of the mysteries than one encounters that has no answer. The photo looks a little ghostly. I intentionally double exposed it in order to get both decorations in one photo. You can do that with a “cheapo camera.”

In all, we went about 3 miles. Took us about an hour.

Serendipity, $150 a month plus bills

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I’ve been playing with my new old school 35mm plastic camera. It does bleak really well. The above was taken on the Oral Roberts University campus before New Years. The below was shot at the Arkansas River Parks.

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I’m really into bleak for some reason.

I also like serendipity. SuperPizzaBoy and I were on an errand last week. We drove past one of the most run down and decrepit houses I’ve ever seen. It had a big hand painted sign that said $150 a month plus bills. I had my plastic camera with me so I stopped and took a picture.

Later that day we went to the airport to pick up my brother. I took some photos waiting for him including one of a custom red car in the parking lot. I posted it earlier this week but here it is again.

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I also took a picture of it with my film camera. Of course you have to wait to get the results back from the developer. This was the result.

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I forgot to advance the film so I had a double exposure. I love the result.

What is your latest serendipity?

Analog Photography

This year I am ringing in the New Year by adopting the technology of toy cameras from the 1960’s.

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Nana, (aka “Greatest MIL in the world”) bought me a new camera for Christmas. It is a Diana Mini. It is very retro and very low tech. It uses 35mm film, no autofocus, no auto exposure, no auto nothing. You have to manually set the focus and guess at the exposure, you even have to advance the film manually. It’s made out of plastic, even the lens. I just love the look of film and have been attracted to Lomography, the art of low tech analog photography.

I’ve had a lot of fun with it, although my first roll of film was a complete disaster, between forgetting to take the lens cap off, not advancing the film, not setting the focus right, and other problems the first roll of film was a complete mess. For professional assistance contact the video production company in San Antonio. However, I salvaged one photo. I call it: “The Spirits of Christmas.”

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I think the bottle was empty when I took the photo, I really don’t remember.

I had a little more luck with the second roll.

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There is something about film, especially low tech film, that I just love. The colors seem deeper and the photos seem to have more “immediacy” about them, plus they seem like they are from a long time ago. I know that I’m not making much sense. I just like them, when I remember to take the lens cover off.

The processing is pretty cheap. I go to Walgreens, they charge $2.99 if all you want is the CD and no prints. I think they feel sorry for me. “Well we tried Yogi.”

If you are geocacher there is the added bonus that the plastic containers for the film are great cache containers. They are waterproof.

I’m still a learning. For such a low tech device it is taking me a while to get the hang of it.

By the way, I wish you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year!!