04/29/02

Yes, I'm still here. Just being lazy.

04/22/02

04/21/02

I admit it: I'm obsessed. There was no need for me to make yet another eBay camera purchase, but I couldn't resist. This time it's a (rare?) black Konica C35, and it only set me back $24. It's another old '70s rangefinder, but a little more compact than most, and also with a few more automatic features. I justify this purchase to myself by saying it fills the gap between my little Olympus XA4 and my Yashica Lynx 5000e. Fact is, there is no gap - I'm merely feeding my addiction again.

04/19/02

My Olympus Pen EE-2 is back! Well, it's not strictly mine. The original one was sent for repair months and months ago, but the guy in the Fresno camera store I sent it to couldn't get the thing to work. So he decided to send me a working model as a replacement, and it hasn't cost me much more than the original repair costs.

The Pen EE-2 is a half-frame camera so it takes 48 photos instead of 24 on a regular roll. It's very simple. It has a selenium light meter and the shutter won't fire if there's not enough light. But, there are some f/stops for flash use, so the camera can be set to one of these, and low light shots are a possibility. It's a very cute little camera, but geting half-frame film processed properly can be a pain.

04/16/02

I feel like commenting on a book I just finished reading for the second time. I rarely mention books here. I read a heck of a lot, but somehow, expressing my feelings and thoughts about them doesn't usually appeal. It's such a personal thing. It's not like a movie that's just out there ready to get picked at or praised, reading always seems more intimate, and my reactions to someone's heartfelt work can be so very different from other people's.

So, though I usually keep my thoughts about books to myself, I want to make an exception and say two words: Primo Levi. For some reason I feel like being dictatorial and insisting that everyone reads If This is a Man and The Truce, Levi's two part record of his enslavement in Auschwitz and his return to Italy after liberation. For such grim subject matter, Levi's prose is gentle and non-judgmental, he never accuses, and he remains decidedly objective. But because of this, an incredible humanity shines through his work. The reader is left to react emotionally to the images and horror that the author went through. It is perhaps a genuinely essential piece of writing, and one of the most important books of the 20th Century.

In fact, I think the following section deserves to be quoted:

Then for the first time we became aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man. In a moment, with almost prophetic intuition, the reality was revealed to us: we had reached the bottom. It is not possible to sink lower than this; no human condition is more miserable than this, nor could it conceivably be so. Nothing belongs to us any more; they have taken away our clothes, our shoes, even our hair; if we speak, they will not listen to us, and if they listen, they will not understand. They even take away our name: and if they want to keep it, we will have to find ourselves the strength to do so, to manage somehow so that behind the name something of us, of us as we were, still remains.

04/15/02

Not really enough good photos for a dedicated Lomo Crawl page unfortunately, but despite that, I still found a few worthy additions to the Lomo Photos section.

Ever wondered how a dog sees the world?

"Well I'm not a leash, so I don't know, do I?"

Street candid of a homeless guy with no teeth.

Early doors at Place Pigalle.

A lovely old Citroen.

Some kind of mystic store around Hayes Valley.

Also, I got back some photos from when my folks were over...

On the streets of San Francisco I captured this beautiful old Dodge, and this massive green 7Up truck.

On a visit to the Cable Car Museum (yes, more interesting than I thought), there's a cool picture of the underground mechanism, and also the massive cable car wheels and pulleys.

After a number of attempts, a semi-decent photo of the SFMOMA foyer, and one of those airport travelator thingies that seem to go on forever.

04/14/02

The Alcatraz photos are up! I made the unusual decision of scanning every image I took. Not because I think they're all masterpieces, but more because they work as a series, and they give me an opportunity to look at each photo and see what merits (if any) it has, and what I can do better next time. Black and white film is difficult to use... you have to be so aware of contrasts and shadows. Still, I'm quite happy with the look of some of these, and the prints actually work a little better than the scans.

04/10/02

My VCR broke. I think it's jealous because the DVD player gets all the attention these days.

The SF Bay Area Lomo posse are meeting on Friday to see if there are any photographic opportunities at the Hayes Valley Spring Block Party in the city. It should be fun. It'll be even more fun trying to find a place to park.

04/04/02

Another day, another bunch of Lomo prints... My folks have returned home to the UK, and I managed to shoot quite a few rolls of film while they were here.

This tunnel under Highway 101 on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge is so cool!

My mother has now been immortalized on this site - but behind bars of course.

Textures are always fun to play with, whether they're natural or decaying.

In the end though, there's always pretty bubbles.

04/03/02

Sometimes it's nice to get back to nature. Most of the time I shoot random stuff I find, usually in an urban environment, but now and again it's good to pull out the big ol' Yashica Lynx and take a few landscapes. With my parents visiting, a trip down Highway 1 yielded a few good coastal shots... admittedly the skies were a little grey but it was fun to shoot anyway.

Once again, I found my favorite wind blown trees in Half Moon Bay. Also, this rather lonely, barren tree right on the cliff face. On the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Marin coast is always worth capturing. Finally, near Pacifica, a shot of the golden coastline and some surfers too. Totally, dude.

04/01/02

According to my mother, I was quite the photographer when I was younger. It's a vague memory, but apparently I was always shooting stuff when I was a kid - flowers, the cat - all that good stuff. I also used to make my mother pose for me too I believe. Who'd have thought? For the longest time I believed I was new to this photography malarkey, now I discover I must've had it in my veins all along...

Today we went to Alcatraz. I took the opportunity to load up some black and white film into the XA4 (something I rarely do) as the place seems conducive to dark and broody photography. In the end, 24 shots wasn't enough... but we'll see how they turn out.