Nikon

So, when I was about 6 or 7, my lovely little cousin decided he wanted to be a photographer. He picked up my parents' Nikon film SLR, and dropped it onto the concrete floor. Until about a week or so ago, it sat up in our cupboard, supposedly broken and useless. Sort of upsetting, as I never learned how to use it. I doubt I ever even picked the thing up to take photos. Taking photography classes and with nothing to lose, I took it in to work, and voila! Dave fixed it. I now have a working film SLR. With no manual, a loose rewind knob, a dented lens that can't take a filter. But it works.

Took a few test rolls. One of which was a dud because I apparently fail at loading film. I'm really going to have to get better at this.

I think it's a Nikon FE? My parents can't remember what they bought. The thing's almost thirty years old and caked in dust anyways. But I'm fiddling around with it. Maybe I'll have some decent shots to post one day.

Vintage Photo Triptych

Photography assignment number trois. Another assignment where I won't be able to use my own camera. A little frustrating. But! I get to use the vintage photo I bought of Jean Harlow a couple years back. On the set of Three Wise Girls, the first film I saw her in. I've been reading David Bret's biography on her, and with the way he puts it, it seems as though she really struggled between having a normal family life (the husbands, the want to have a child) and living out her mother's movie star dreams. I'm going to play off that. Crop it, have it printed on fabric, and stitch some text from the bio in. Gotta sew fast though. Due soon.
Here's the photograph.

Photographic Diptych

Well, my upcoming photography assignment was stressing me out this morning. (Technically I guess it still is morning. Not quite noon yet.) But anyways. I had to do some type of narrative with some sort of issue behind it. I don't really do "issues." I feel like if I were to take photographs that commented on war or poverty or animal cruelty, it would come off as insincere and fake. Forced. And while some people can get away with creating art with intense and sometimes controversial subject matter, I simply can't bring myself to do it.

So, I looked at the book industry. And the recent popularity of the Kobo reader, iPad, and things like that. E-books. The downloading of literature and the very gradual shrinking of people who buy actual books. Well, I personally like actual books. I'd rather hold a book in my hand than some sort of electronic device. I can't exactly go over a text on costume history in a Kobo reader. And certainly not a book on photography. And how exactly does a parent plan to read Love You Forever on an iPad? Part of the fun for kids is turning the actual pages of a story. Holding the actual book in their hands and looking at the pictures.

With all that in mind I shifted about some of the books on my shelf and snapped a few pictures. And within an hour my project is all done. Just needs to be printed. Now my only concern is if I want matte, glossy, or metalic paper. Oh, decisions...

And as for the narrative aspect of the photographs, it's basically someone picking and actual book off an actual shelf and reading it. None of this e-shelf business. Real books. Ironically I went with Jane Austen's Emma. Which is, of course, usually free in the e-bookstores.

Photo Session

Took some photos for my Time Based Media blog this morning. All inspired by the amazing Mika Ninagawa. I love her photographs. They're pretty much what I inspire to take. I only wish I could get in somewhere that had a ton of goldfish. Her goldfish photos are some of my favourite.

So here are some photographs. All flowers. I figure they'd be more fun to look at than my research paper for History.

I'll have to take a few more in the morning, because all my favourites came out portrait, and I really need them in landscape. Silly me.