Super Sweet Camera Straps

I tell you what, there are some crafty ladies out there in the internet world. Just recently I joined the Shutter Sisters flickr pool. I never really read all the posts on those flickr pool pages, but I saw a title for camera straps and my curiosity clicked the link. The author of the post shared this great Etsy shop with beautiful decorative ribbon sewn into camera straps.

I love the straps that the etsy shop creates, but I've got my eye on a couple ribbons that I found during a recent vintage ribbon search. I may finally have to order some ribbon, whip out my sewing machine and create one of my own.Photo I grabbed off the website from which I'm ordering the ribbon

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it finally feels like fall

Good-bye summer, hello beautiful, beautiful fall. I know I should be mourning the end of summer fun, and I suppose there's a small part of me that is, but the greater part of me is bursting with excitement for fall, and always has. Fall has some how for me, always been what the New Year should be. It's a time for beginning new projects, planning again for the year ahead, and trying on fresh new ideas and ways to look at the world. I am wide open and breathing in all that the fall has to offer as deeply as I can. I was made for fall.

To me, the sun in this photo really feels like summer saying good-bye.

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I think it's a sign

Here is a quick glimpse in to a neighborhood on the east side. The thing about this neighborhood that caught my eye the most was the signage. The style of the signs seemed to suggest that the town must have boomed in the 50's but now they've all experienced a sort of urban decay. Perfect for a little TtV photo shoot.

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Photo Week: Auto-Settings

This week Photo Week is inspired by our camera's Auto-Settings

Share your work with Steph as she hosts this week's challenge.

Monday - LandscapeIt's a secret little landscape.

Tuesday - Macro

Alex was driving me around Lebanon to shoot some photos of our small TtV style and when I got back in the car this little guy was sitting on my door. He flew off onto a fence where I shot the rest of the photos.

Wednesday - Portrait

My sweet niece Sylvia Q.

Thursday - Action

My other sweet niece Margot being pushed on the swing by Uncle Alex.

Friday - Nighttime

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Mustang Sally, through the viewfinder

Somehow this TtV thing seems to capture the late summer warmth on a cherry red mustang far more eloquently than my dslr on its own. Working in a field where everything is post produced, there's something really freeing about creating a whole mood in an image before it ever reaches my photo editing software. No grunge masks, no massive exposure or color corrections, just a slight tweak of the curves to pop the darks and viola, an unsightly used car lot in a small town can feel completely warm and nostalgic. I posted more small town USA, TtV style, on my Flickr site.

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Oh Gocco!

This little device is the raddest thing I've seen in a long time! I've been lusting after it lately and imagining all the cool stuff I could do with it. It's not sold here in the US anymore, so it's become a rare-ish sort of item in these parts. How sad that something THIS fun should be largely unavailable to the general art loving public here in the US. Some day, hopefully, some lucky owner of a Gocco will tire of it's charms, or perhaps upgrade to one of the larger units leaving it available and in search of a new loving home. Some day...

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TtV Experiment

Last night I grabbed an old piece of cardboard and some electrical tape to construct my glare blocking tunnel for the TtV experiment. It didn't take long, I suppose I could have tried a little harder to make it look nice, but I was so anxious to get to using it I really didn't care about the aesthetics of the tube.

My contraption, though strange and ugly, worked great!

I took a couple test photos in the living room last night to test it out, then a couple more outside this morning. I can see some definite potential for cool photos. I'm curious if the length of the tube has anything to do with the way the edges of the photo will bubble. (why didn't I pay more attention in optical physics) Well, I'm off, I've got lots of experimenting to do!

The top of the camera flips up and you look down through the viewfinder


Here's my ugly little cardboard tube on the camera. I just stick the lens of my DSLR in the top of the tube and snap away.

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Hello Beautiful!

A week or so ago I won an old twin lens Kodak Duaflex camera on ebay. I just think they're super cool looking and I thought it would be something interesting to have on a shelf in the living room. Aside from it's aesthetic value, I of course thought that it would be fun to load it up with film and shoot some photos with it from time to time.

As soon as the package arrived, I opened the box, pulled out my new (old) toy and began to wander around the house. As I gazed down through the top of the camera through the viewfinder there was something really cool about what I saw. The same things I see EVERY day somehow looked different and a little more interesting. I thought little more about actually using the camera other than to show Alex the Duaflex when he got home. Just as I did, he held the camera at mid torso level and looked down through the top of the camera and commented on how neat things looked through the viewfinder.

Apparently we're not the only ones who think that a little magic happens when you look down through the veiwfinder of these old cameras. I recently found a post about TtV (Through the Viewfinder) Apparently there's a whole community of people who rig up their digital SLR cameras to take photos down through cameras like my duaflex. Here's a great how-to article that explains the process. I can't wait til tomorrow when I will rig up my own duaflex for some TtV fun!

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Viva la Photo Week!!!

As many of you know, I'm a girl who LOVES a good project. I generally need one to inspire me to get up off the couch and force me do something creative. Otherwise, I feel like like there's always something more productive I could be doing, like laundry, or one of the billion home improvement projects we need to complete. Or I feel like I'm sick of doing productive things and I just sit around and watch Hulu. Then of course when I look back at my week and think about what I've done I always feel a little sad if I didn't manage to slip in anything creative (outside of work stuff). I mean, there are soooo many creative things that I want to do and try and learn about, and it's just sad when I look back at my week and see that I've done nothing to work towards those creative goals and interests. And it's sad when I would like to think of myself as a photography hobbiest, yet I only take snapshots every now and again during a vacation or a get together. I've got so much to learn and so many experiments to try which is why I LOVE a good project.

So, I say, "VIVA LA PHOTO WEEK!!!"

I am so excited to continue with the week long photo projects as next week, Sept. 15th, Photo Week is hosted by Steph Wagner. She hasn't announced her theme yet, she's keeping us all waiting with baited breath.

But once she posts her theme, anyone is welcome to join in and flex your creative muscles. Just comment on her Sept. 15th post with a link to the site where you've posted your photos and she'll list it with the others.

I look forward to being inspired by the great photos that will come out of the project that is Photo Week.

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