Showing posts with label italy. Show all posts

Analogue Shopping: Zenit EM and more analogue goodness!

Tomorrow is my birthday and it seems totally appropriate to celebrate it buying myself a new camera, the first one in ages. I've been obsessing over old Zenit SLR cameras for quite a long time now, looking for them on ebay and everywhere else, trying to find a working and not too expensive one, possibly not from Ukraine or Latvia as my country's customs would keep the parcel for ages. Today, after much indecision, I finally treated myself to a Zenit EM.

I decided to only buy the camera body as I'm always worried the lens might have scratches or fungi on it, so I'm going to buy it someplace else than the evil bay. I paid about £15 [+£18 for shipping], the seller seems to have a good feedback and the shipping should take about 5-9 days, but I live in Italy so you never really know ( -_-')

Do I actually need a new camera? Of course I don't. I own more than 50 cameras, plus a whole lot of disposable cameras and various pinhole cameras I made myself, so no, it is totally futile. But I can't wait to get my hands on some Helios lens and try to get some cool bokeh! [like these 1, 2, 3]

Actually, there's plenty more analogue goodness on its way to me for my birthday... A big thank you in advance to the lady below [aka my sister] - rumors have it she's going to give me some packs of the new Impossible Color Protection SX 70 film! <3
Spring seems to have finally set in, the weather is absolutely great, some less-hectic workdays lie ahead and it looks like my creative juices are hopefully flowing again - I really can't wait for some photoshooting action!

Blurry Pictures From a Gig

The last picture is an example of what might happen if your bestfriend's boyfriend takes your camera.

/druˈsɪlə/


 Drusilla

Latin [ros] + Greek [drosos]: something new and tender, pure, like dew, pure water, pure blood.
"Anything tender, like the young of animals." *




Fate.

LC-A+ "Russia Day": Average Summer Afternoon


I've spent almost every afternoon of this last summer at Bene's new bar. Drinking Coca-Cola Zero, smoking something like 20 cigarettes per afternoon, talking about any possible thing, waiting for him to show up... it's been a weird summer. I'm gonna miss lots of things about those lazy days and hyper nights. Mostly, I'm gonna miss him.

Flickr | Tumblr | LomoHome | LomoAlbum

Lomo LC-A+: More Summer Glimpses



BeerFest Dinner & Walking by the Lake.

Flick | LomoHome | Tumblr

Diana Mini: Seaside Rush


So six months ago Bene and I went to the seaside. Which was absolutely great as it meant spending some time with one of my favorite people while doing some of the things I love the most in life. Like driving my car in the desert highway, eating out at my favorite grill restaurant, drinking some of the finest beers on my windy balcony while staring at a huge red moon reflecting on the dark sea at night, and then watching Clerks for the nth time and drinking some more icy Bud or Viru. And smoking too many cigarettes in between. As you can see from my shadow on her shoulderblade in the picture above. 


As I mentioned in this post, we only spent 20 hours there. Getting there at around 10pm, we could only go to the beach the next morning. The weather was just perfect for testing out some of my [then] newest toys, the Diana Mini and the Russia Day. So we hanged out a bit snapping some pics, bought some food and then went chilling out at the beach. 



I didn't take many pictures as I wished as it was such a fleeting visit, but I think you get the idea of how nice a place it is! Also, I've spent so much time here that I'm sort of used to its beauty.


I used Lomography x-pro slide 200 and [obviously] cross processed it. I really liked the film, even if my 1hour lab must use the oldest chemicals ever, as these pictures don't look cross-processed at all.


Wait a second: did they really cross-process it? I guess they did, I don't think they even know the difference between C-41 and E6!


I'm not much of a fan of the Diana, I guess it depends on the impossibility to process 120 around here,  and I now have mixed feelings about the Diana Mini.


I really love its size, its look, its weight, and the half frame format really comes in handy when you want to "pack light" and get 72 frames out of a 36 exposures roll. I would love to try the square format too, but my camera seems to be stuck on the half frame mode. 


The half frame mode can be quite tricky too. This picture above wasn't meant to be vertical at all, but I forgot about the hf-thing, so here it is, a sliced graffiti. My bad '-_-


It took me so long to get this roll processed because 72 shots can be too much sometimes. I guess I'm more of a 12 exposures-girl. That's the main reason to such a useless picture.


Occasionally this camera yelds strong vignetting... which I love!


Ok, maybe this is a bit too hardcore a vignette, but I like it anyway!


Bene aka my favorite model. This picture makes me wonder why we don't go there more often. I mean, that's some nice chilling out... gotta go back there asap, I guess. Weekends in the city: screw you.

Holga 135BC: My favorite double exposure

Long time no see, right? I still have to get quite a lot of rolls developed, so I had to dig in my old shots, and there out came this one, which I particularly like, as I think it is my best... er, well, most decent, at least, double exposure so far. Taken in late July/early August 2010 at the seaside on Fuji Velvia 100. They're Vale [horizontal] and John [vertical]. So this was my only lucky moment with multiple exposures. Too bad.

Latest analogue news is Lomography published another article of mine, which is an attempt at reviewing my Sexy Lomo with the Funny Logo. Thanks to Mikahsupageek you can now read it French too: does it get any sexier than this?

Also, I've bought some amazing pro slide film expired in the 1990s... and made a few lab-rat experiments I'll be testing these next weeks [and most likely develop in 2057]. Wicked.

Coming up next: playing around with the crappy instant back of the Diana F+.

Have a great weekend!

Old Shots: Carnival

I'm quite sure I'll never fit it in in this city. It's not the idea of a big city that scares me, it's just this very city. Like, holidays are only ment to sleep 'till lunchtime and wear your pjs all day. No social gathering required. And I'm a bit of a loner myself, but I like going out with people I like doing crazy stuff. I like carnivals.


This is little American Indian me. I loved wearing that thing on my head. I've always loved feathers, as far as I can remember. Though my mom didn't want me to pick them up from the beach.
I didn't like parades that much, I liked dressing up and spray streamer battles the most. Also, we did have some very nice carnival traditions. Like fried treats, a special soup, collective wine binge drinking in the streets... and kids walk into the shops doing a sort of "trick or treat" [we don't have Hallowe'en, you know].


This is little Egyptian me. In elementary school we used to make our own carnival costumes, which was über cool. Also because I've always been the biggest attention-seeker kid of all time, and pretty much always managed to make some quite "visible" outfits!

I'm sure there are plenty other picures from past carnivals, except those from 2005 on, because I either didn't take part in any parade or party, or was too drunk to figure out how a damn camera worked. But those were the digital days, so I wouldn't upload them here anyway. I also live these two shots a lot. They were both taken by my mom, in 1994 and 1998, I guess. My age-guessing ability fails me when it comes to kids...

A whole post without a single picture taken by me feels like cheating, I know. I'll deal with it.
I submitted this article to Lomography.com about Fujifilm's Photo Rescue Project. Just saying.
Have a lovely day!

Lomo LC-A+ "Russia Day": I Feel Good


Long time no see, I know and I'm sorry. I've been über busy, lately. School is taking most of my time, then there's work and then there's hanging out with my pals. I couldn't feel any happier: I'm doing quite good at school, my last exams went 24/30, 25/30 , 27/30, three 28/30 and I even managed to get a 30/30 cum laude, which totally made not just my day or week, but probably the whole exam session!
I'm also making friends with the other kids in the first year [we're 90% girls, which is pretty awful and yet obvious when it comes to language schools]. I was afraid I could end up being the lonely girl having lunch all by herself for ages, but it's safe to say I'm doing good in fitting in.

I don't have much time to hang out with Bene & Hector, or N, or whoever, but last Friday Bene had a sleepover at my place and the next day we had some shopping [light shopping, sigh!] and then Chinese take-away dinner at my place with Hecty, who left at around 3am after a nice chat indeed.
Talking about photography, I totally suck. I was supposed to take some rolls to the lab but didn't manage to. Tomorrow I should be going shopping again, hope i make it to the lab [and really hope I get something half decent from these Christmas negs].

I guess I miss having a real blog, my tiny corner in the www to tell people about what goes on in my life. I know this was supposed to be all about my attempt at analogue photography and stuff, I'm not even sure I'll get back to heavy blogging about my worthless existence, feel free to unfollow me in case.

The mirror shot with my beloved bunny ears is just because. Just because I'm feeling good, and cheerful.
Lomo LC-A+ RL "Russia Day" + Fuji Superia 1600
September/October 2011
As always, click on picture to see it on Flickr

Have a lovely day,
C.

LC-A+ Russia Day: Compulsory Ice Cream Date








Whenever N comes back to the city, you are expected to get her to her favorite ice cream bar in town. And that's the only way to get her pose for you. Ice cream. Lots of :-)
I obviously only like the first picture above, the other ones are quite crappy. In my defence, I was just toying around to get to know the distance setting and the lightmeter of this little baby I love oh so much.

LC-A+ "Russia Day" + Fuji Superia 1600 [exp.2009]
Pictures featured in my last article for Lomography.

*Click on the pictures to see them on Flickr or here to see them in my LomoHome*

LC-A+ Russia Day: Pete and The Pirates

Last month Bene and I went to see Pete and the Pirates playing live @Spazio211, my favorite place in the whole city. The Russia Day obviously came along, but in my film collection of nearly a hundred rolls the highest ISO I managed to find was a Fuji Superia X-tra 800. The photos of the gig itself didn't turn out well. Actually, they didn't turn out at all.


The venue we love so much is small and dark, except for this part [the entryway]. The stage is the smallest I've ever seen, it is just 15cms higher than the floor, making it very democratic but also painfully annoying if you wish to take a picture of the band from a distance.


We got two cokes [Bene was in charge as our driver, and I'm a good friend so I didn't drink liquors either] and sat at one of those high skinny tables. We had a nice view of the stage from up there. There were so little people that we went smoking outside and no one stole our table. How sad.


While waiting for the band to start playing, we talked and took pictures of ourselves, then the music started. I had only heard a couple of songs by the Pirates before that night, and liked them. Also, they're pretty cute in their Brit-style-ness. I mean, guys don't wear that kind of shoes and shirts in Italy, and that's a real shame. But I think that look suits Brit guys better, I guess that's for their pale skin, I don't know, that's just an opinion.


If I could talk to the Pirates, I would tell them not to blame it on their own selves if the audience looked bored and didn't feel much like dancing or interacting. The thing is, this place is the perfec hang-out place for the young indie-wannabe-elitists of town.


The thing I hate the most about this [shitty black pictures aside], is that their attitude prevents me from really enjoying myself at gigs. The singer felt a little depressed, I guess that's because we really are the shitty audience I told you. Bene and I make no exception: we spent the whole time sitting at our table, sipping our cokes, and even had a cigarette break. Just like you do at a boring conference. I feel sorry about it, Pirates.


On our cigarette break I noticed something was wrong with the camera: the film got somehow stuck somewhere, so I made some accidental double exposures. This one above is quite creepy, as it seems like  someone stabbed Bene, but it's also quite funny. The one I like the most is the first picture up up up  above. I only got mad when I realized the only half decent picture of the band got double exposed and it now looks shitty. I guess you could call this one an illfated roll.


I think Bene got some fucking attitude in this picture. Back from ciggy-time, we headed for the ladies' restroom.


Ok, now, this one requires a little explanation. Back in October 2006 Bene and I went to see ¡Forward, Russia! live in that very same place. We got bored 'cause we didn't like them much, and drank a few drinks [my dad took us there, and we didn't have a driving licence to protect anyway], and got little drunk. Well, it was just me, actually. We decided to go the toilet, and when Bene came out of the WC, she found me stretching on that same sink. She burst into laughter, when a nice English girl came in and started talking to me. Ever since, I kept telling anybody I met the brown-head lady from The Pipettes, 'cause I truly believe it was her. Five years later, which is today, I started questioning my sanity.


We like that toilet so much that we indulged in mirror-shots! I love the red light that shows whenever you press the shutter button of the LC-A+!


I took this one from the WC [standing still, you silly!], you can see me in the mirror above the sink.


In the very WC there is a mirror too. Could I ever miss the chance? No way. Also, the funny thing is that I didn't notice the "27-10" writing on the wall, and that's a nice and useful reminder, being that night October 27th!


Once at home I emptied my jacket pockets and put those bits and bobs on my desk along with my brand new Pirates' cd and the show ticket. And took a picture just for the sake of it. Then I put on the t-shirt [Bene and I always buy bands tees whenever we go to a concert], and decided to try an arm-length sel-portrait.


I immeditaley knew I'd hate it, so I went straight to my bathroom for a mirror-shot. Also because my bathroom looks weird, doesn't it?


Just for you to know: I can't really understand why would a fresh roll of ISO 800 film yeld more grain that an expired Fuji 1600. Fuji Superia 800? Never again. I guess I'll just get myself some Lomography CN800 next time. And stock up on Fuji 1600. 

*Click on the pictures to see them on Flickr or check out the album in my LomoHome*