Perspective and Juxtaposition

just self-developed another roll of film from the shoot for my photo project. again…details on what this is about will come soon.  but heres another sneak peak.

b&w street photography from San Diego to Berkeley and back.  

I tend to get a good amount of compliments on the photos I've taken with these old fashioned film cameras of mine.  The majority of them are usually compliments on the colors, composition, or the object in focus.  I really enjoy it however, when people comment on my photos about things you can't see with your eyes.  It makes me feel like people "get it".  As if, one of my photos were able to break the barrier of just being a single moment in time, to a story.  

One of the most recent comments I've recieved, is on this photo pictured of a couple in their golden years on a Disneyland date:

I decided to go ahead and back the Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner.  I'm a little iffy about this to be honest.  Mainly because for the same price....you can get a good quality scanner from craigslist.  but the main reason i got this was because you can run an entire roll of film through the box without having to cut the film, then put it in an awkward mask.  I'll be scanning all my future b&w negatives with this..and will professionally scan them if I come across a few shots that need to be in a gallery.

I decided to go ahead and back the Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner.  I'm a little iffy about this to be honest.  Mainly because for the same price....you can get a good quality scanner from craigslist.  but the main reason i got this was because you can run an entire roll of film through the box without having to cut the film, then put it in an awkward mask.  I'll be scanning all my future b&w negatives with this..and will professionally scan them if I come across a few shots that need to be in a gallery.

man...the built in flash on the Minolta Hi-Matic AF2 is POWERFUL.  maybe a little too powerful though....objects illuminated by its flash seem to lose a major amount of detail.  i've built a "diffuser" for this flash, we'll see how it works....but on the other hand, low light photos on this camera come out excellent.  i'm glad the camera will let me shoot these, because some of my other "auto" film cameras automatically flash in low light....or lock up until you enable the flash.

i figured out you can use your iPad + iPhone camera to scan your negatives.  i'm sure somebody probably figured this out before me, but i'll share anyway.

1.  set your iPad at full brightness with a completely white background. 2.  using your phone, take an image of the frame you'd like to scan 3.  open it up in Photoshop Express, crop it, reverse the colors, and mirror the image horizontally.

what i find interesting, is that the sample image that i didn't really put much effort into scanning came out a little lighter than how it was scanned at the lab.  i can actually see my subject's face in this one.

i just cross processed a roll of Fuji Velvia 100...and the results came out pretty gnarly.  i think its weird that most of the shots came out VERY red, especially considering fuji usually brings out the blues and greens. 

this is a street shot from las vegas of a street performer on the strip.

Here is the same photo taken on two different cameras.

shot 1:  iPhone 4S/Instagram via Xpro [cross processed] filter

got a new underwater camera since my Weathermatic broke.  this one got slightly exposed when i opened the back realizing the film wasn't completely winded.  but man this shot came out pretty nice.  the light leak balances out the blues.

Leopard Sharks in La Jolla, CA.  very peaceful and shy creatures.  

just a cautionary tale for anybody trying to use Fuji Velvia 50F...the film is AMAZING for summertime, because you can capture images in bright sunlight without the shots getting blown out.  the grains are VERY fine, giving you a very high definition image...but the only downside is that the shadows come out very crisp too...almost to the point of black.  SO REMEMBER, if you decide to shoot with this film, be conscious of your light source and shadows.