Kauai through a plastic lens

A few photos taken around Kauai. I brought along my trusty Holga and snapped quite a few shots. 

This photo was literally taken while wandering around the island. It was taken on my first full day there. Jon and I just took off walking up the coast, and it ended up being quite a long hike. 

If you click on this photo to see it larger, you'll see that there's a local fishing right in the line up of palm trees. This was taken near sunset and just after eating dinner. 

This was taken on one of the stretches of road that we traveled on quite a bit. I couldn't get enough of the tree-line street, so I had to stop once and snap this. 

Hanakpi`ai Falls, on the NaPali Coast hike. This was as far as we made it on our hike that day. The white haze at the top of the photo is the waterfall's mist refracting light. As gorgeous as the day was, being right by the falls felt like standing in front of an open refrigerator. 

Queen's Bath. A beautiful and deadly place. On the hike in, there was a sign warning of the deaths that have taken place here. This photo was taken as the tide was going out. On that day we got to swim with a sea turtle. 

Queen's Bath as the tide was coming in. If you click on the image to see it bigger, you can tell that water is rolling off of the cliff at the right of the image. Within an hour, the cove (where people in the foreground are hanging out) was completely submerged and the water looked like it was boiling. 

This image as well as the photo below were taken on my last day in Hawaii.We did our best to squeeze every last bit of Hawaiian sunshine into our day before getting on a plane for 11 hours. 

So much snorkeling went on this day. 

Camera love

A few of my cameras, clockwise from the top left: Polaroid sx70, Diana mini, Polaroid 350 land camera, Canon Canonet QL17, Holga 120N, Holga 120 GN. The camera taking the photo? Its pretty new (to me): a Polaroid sx70 SONAR OneStep. I received it from an amazing woman/friend of mine as a gift out of the blue. How wonderful is that? The film is from The Impossible Project, the px70 PUSH! variety.

I'm loving how this photo turned out, how the center is the sharpest spot, and how the colors all turned out dreamy. (My Holga 120N is in real life black and pistachio.) And aren't the crackles so lovely? You can see it cropped and more up and personal by clicking here.

All of the cameras pictured above have been getting a lot of love lately, with the Diana mini being the exception. Not because of anything she's done. She's just brand new. As in, I got her in the post today and barely loaded her up with her inaugural roll of film. A fresh batch of Lucky brand film, 200 iso. I'm so looking forward to snapping away. If you don't yet know about the Diana mini, she's a special kind of camera that can take either square format photos or half frames. That means that if I wanted, I could get 72 photos out of one 36 exposure roll of film. I can also switch between square and half frame during one roll of film, and still do double exposures like I can with my regular-sized Diana (or Holga). Besides, she's ridiculously tiny and cute. And my only white camera. What's not to love about this camera? I'm taking her out of a test drive this weekend. I'll let you know how that all goes real soon. By the way, I bought this baby on clearance, which always feels nice.

Lawai International Center

As photographed with my Holga 120N camera.

Last August I spent a good portion of my afternoon wandering around this place. There is so much history attached to this tiny plot of land. So many memories, dreams, hopes, and prayers are attached to this location. My husband and I were the only two people on the tour so it was very peaceful and somewhat mysterious. (I called to schedule a tour only to find that they were closed for the remainder of my stay on Kauai. They graciously offered to give us a tour, anyway. Amazing people there at the Center.) This place has been a sacred ground for many generations and cultures, and you can feel it as you climb up and down the hill that's dotted with Japanese shrines.

The Holga Show Opening Reception

So the opening was June 18th, and it was a lot of fun. Besides checking out the Holga Show, it was also Gallery Stroll night, so I also got to see a bunch of other art in nearby galleries.

Below are some of the photos on display. There are a few of mine in this shot. (One of them had an honorable mention. Yay.)

I had photos from my travels to Texas, Indiana, Washington, and all over Utah on display. I loved how the shots were displayed-- they were organized by subject matter/theme rather than artist, which I think made the whole thing flow quite nicely. It was also pretty cool to see how other people photographed similar images, or how many variations on one theme were shown.

The amazing 3-d Holga cake. It was as delicious-tasting as it was good-looking. Also, they had this fabulous mint lemonade... mmm mmm....


The above photo is of me with M. Bryan Thompson. He is a photographer and the owner of Saans. You might notice that he had on a Holga t-shirt under his white button-up. (Also, even though it may not look like it, he's a friendly guy.)

The Holga Show 2010

I didn't mean to keep this all to myself, but I submitted photos and am officially in. I heard over the phone a few days ago that some, if not all of my submissions got into the show, and then today I got word via e-mail that all nine of my photos made it in. Super exciting, right?
I'm not going to spoil your experience of seeing my stuff in the gallery by posting the shots here, so you'll have to go to the HOLGA Show yourself. The show is at the SAANS gallery in downtown SLC, and the opening reception is June 18th from 6-10pm. You're all invited and I'd love to see you there.

-- If you can't make it opening night, however, SAANS is keeping the show up and running for two months, so stop in some other time.

Analog shots from last year

Ah, the joy of analog. My Holga and now defunct Windsor have given me more fun shots. Most of these are from last year, but I only got around to developing them a few months ago. That's yet another reason for loving film cameras. I remember that I took a bunch of photos, but I don't always remember the shots in great detail, and I never know just how most of the photos will look (since I often shoot on slide film and then get it cross-processed), so when I actually get around to developing and printing these kinds of photos, I never know exactly what to expect. And therein lies the allure. Every time its an adventure.

As you scroll through these, take a moment to enjoy the vignettes along the edges (all thanks to the magic of cruddy cameras) as well as how everything gets all soft-focused the farther out from center you look. Plastic lenses make for some dreamy images. And any photos with crazy color shifts? Yep, those are cross-processed. Hope you enjoy them.

Holga photo of sandstone mesas in Zion National Park. This photo was taken just after doing Keyhole Canyon. Summer 2009.

Windsor photo taken in Indiana, on break from work. April 2009.

Windsor photo of capitol building in Indianapolis, April 2009. I loved the light when I got to this little park area. I took way too many photos just then.

Windsor photo of courthouse in Lafayette, IN. April 2009.

Lafayette, Indiana statue man. Notice the real sword in his hands. Windsor photograph, taken April 2009.

Holga photograph containing part of the statue man and his building. April 2009.

Windsor photograph of (I believe) a bank in Lafayette, IN. April 2009.

My dear little sister, days after I took her through the Subway in Zion. I believe she was fully recovered by this time. Holga photo taken September 2009.

Cross Processing

Always some risk, sometimes a reward. . .

Here are some of my more recent cross-processed Holga prints for your viewing pleasure:

And Then The Clouds Came

This shot was taken in July sometime, just outside of Zion National Park. (Just before my friends all got severely rained on.) I hardly ever get any light leaks with my Holga anymore. I'm not sure how I got so lucky with this one. I'm guessing it happened after I took the film out, maybe it was wound loosely on the take-up spool? Either way, I like the occasional light leak. It adds to the adventure, never knowing just what you'll end up with when you pick your prints up.

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Just look at the crisp edges on the tops of those tulips. And isn't that shade of green amazing?

This and the following photos were taken just outside of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. A lovely garden and a nature hike area snuggle up against the museum--such fun exploring if you're ever in the area on a nice day.

Delicious Three

Well, isn't it? I'm quite happy with how the colors turned out on this shot. And I think the reflections are so fun.

Numbers Times Two

Here I did a double-exposure and then cross-processed. I am quite pleased with how the numbers line up just so. . . As always, I'm also a big fan of the vignetting along the outer edge.

Developing Ghosts

So I developed a bunch of my Holga and Windsor shots. Some date back to February. Yikes. But I'm finally doing it. And it makes me happy. I got 5 rolls of medium format film developed and one roll of 35mm. They are all images from my "toy" cameras.

I just had the film developed, not printed. I like a lot of the shots, so I'm going to have to get some of them printed out next.

At the moment, I have a small preview of some of the photos. They are the scanned and manipulated negatives which is not so pretty to look at, but, it'll give you an idea of what's next.

At the Wave, February 2009

The above photo was taken on my now deceased Windsor camera. Before it decided to warp out of functionality, I happily toted it around along with my Holga.
See--


I've discovered that the Windor's shutter works just fine, so I've hacked and sawed what was left of my little plastic baby into pieces. I'm hoping I can salvage the shutter mechanism and Frankenstein it into some kind of working camera again.

Mostly I just need to find a new lens. I can build a camera body fairly easily... but I'm daydreaming and will stop now.

The following two photographs were my first foray into night photography with my Holga. They just so happen to be photographs of the Fourth of July fireworks in St. George and Washington, Utah.The first is more easily recognized as fireworks, but I like how the sparks and trails of lights line up in the second one. (The second photograph is a double-exposure.)

4th of July, Holga style

Holga doubles your holiday fun

Lastly, I've included a few more scenes that my Windsor captured. They are a triptych of Indianapolis, Indiana. This was from my excursion walking around downtown Indy alone, so I didn't venture too far with a plastic camera hanging off my neck. The locales are probably all within about ten blocks of one another.

Donuts

Theater

Statue