Architectural and landscape explorations

I realize that I'm way behind in my fisheye pictures submission, since there is still ice and snow on this film and we (finally) had a summer day this week, followed by some decent spring weather.

Here you go for a bunch of random pictures of Somerville and Cambridge, either on my way to work or on a weekend walk to Boston.

Swan icicles

Huge tree

Presbytery by a church (doesn't look that far away from the sidewalk in reality)

"Attention passengers. The next red line train to Alewife is now arriving"

By the divinity school at Harvard

Straight lines analysis

You can name this picture how ever you want

Classic Boston view

Ugly buildings

Columns of the most greek looking building on the MIT campus

Waiting for the spring...

Holga in New York

Guenther and I had a conference in the Big Apple (is it still called that?) and Clo and Alex came up for the weekend after we had finished hobnobbing and the four of us enjoyed the fun of New York Streets.

Holga continues to surprise me. I took this film before I got my first one back, so the same comments continue: multiple exposure is at risk of being WAY over exposed; a steady hand, or better still a tripod, yields the best results.

Guenther practices his German by reading the Holga manual. On the Acela train to NYC camera shake proves to be a problem.

Multiple exposure and color flash.

Ditto.

Alex of New York.

Time Square.

View from my hotel room in the Marquis.

St Patrick's parade

Yay, St Patrick's day! Just about one month late, here are my pictures of this really fun event. We were a bit late so we ended up as part of the parade, performing a few dance steps to satisfy the raging crowd along the way. It gave me the chance to approach the performing members from very close, allowing me to quickly fisheye everything within the reach of my arm.

I had to approach the bagpipers from very close to catch their inflated cheeks:

... and almost touch the nose of the horse to get that perspective:

There were a lot of people taking their Irish roots very seriously for the occasion:

And this dog was absolutely humongous (even if he doesn't look like so):

Another cheeky bagpiper:

... and finally, a police vehicle that seems to transpose us a few decades back in time:

I'm getting a little more familiar with the super wide angle. I just have to get up to a few centimeters of anything that I want to shoot.

Film #2: Ski Trip

I know, I know, it's been a while since I last uploaded pictures, but it requires a bit of effort to scan, crop and photoshop paper pictures, and I've been busy (or lazy, pick whatever you think fits best). But do not lose hope dear reader, all of my best shots will eventually be shared.

For this first glimpse at film #2, let's go back to the heart of the winter, with a really fun ski trip to New Hampshire on March 4.

Nothing really incredible in terms of picture quality and composition, but nothing terrible either. I am still experimenting.

And finally, you've seen this view before, but I wanted to show it through a different eye. Yep, it was taken a few seconds after this one!

To come: St Patrick's day, the animal series, some architecture exploration, and random stuff from film #2!

Fishy comparison

Did I mention the wide-angle factor of Fishy? Taking the example of a typical object sitting on my desk, I ran an experiment. I took a picture from about the same distance (10cm) of the subject, first with my normal camera:

... and then with fishy:

Same distance, I said. I still have a hard time accounting for such a wide angle. I have learnt from my first film though, and the second one shows some promising progress. Come back soon.

First Holga Film

Gosh, its very different from what I was expecting. I have the camera set on "16" in the back window which means that it should take 6x4.5 cm negatives, but when I got them developed they recognised them as 6x6.

A few things I've noticed. One is that the picture quality is amazingly sharp (when I don't have the shakes as in the picture below when Clo and I are on a gondola) and the medium format film is very cool in this respect. The other thing is that with the multiple exposures, I need to account for the increase in light being thrown onto the negative. Some of my pictures look a bit washed out. So, for future reference, a tripod and multiple exposure with dark and light situations (rather than just light) would be good.

And so begins the tour of my first Holga photos.

Clo and me wearing the Boston look -- beanies with plaits on each side.


Lowell Common. With good light, and no shake this is one of the photos that is an example of the fine quality of the medium format over 35mm film.



This is my best multiple exposure, taken in the picturesque Lowell.



Me on a beach in Cape Cod. I thought I had taken a multiple exposure on this one: the first photo with four of my friends in the photo; the second with me standing there. Its obviously not the case -- I'm not sure what happened to the first photo.



The top part of this photo is a good example of how the really dark works well with light in a multiple exposure.


The Old Burying Ground.


Jenn, who gifted Holga to me, in Lowell Common.