BIGGER (8 x 10) CAMERA!! YAY!

When I was 15 I got my first job. K, it sucked. But I was tired of being on my parents' leash and I wanted to be able to get the things I wanted without having to worry about whether or not they'd give me money for them.

My first place of employment was at a Red Barn burger joint. And my task for the whole first month I worked there was to shovel salt-laden, greasy-ass french fries into paper envelopes. I said it sucked, what did you expect? :P

LOL:


I did actually manage to save some money, but minimum wage back then was under $2.00 an hour, and I worked A LOT to save that money.

One day I decided to go shopping for school clothes. My mother gave me some cash -what she thought was appropriate to buy clothes for school. I went into this one totally kewl boutique, and immediately spotted an ankle-length purple velvet coat that was hung on display, up by the ceiling. I got the sales person to bring it down and I tried it on. It fit me PERFECTLY, and I totally fell in love with that thing. but it was a lot of money. mind you, I had the money, but to get that coat would've cost me everything I had saved and my mom's money, too.

I left the store without the coat.

And I went home and thought and thought about the coat. When I slept I dreamt about the coat. After a couple days how much I wanted that coat had only grown...and so I decided to go on ahead and spend all my money on it.

I went into the store and the coat was no longer hanging in its place by the ceiling. So I asked the sales person where she'd put it. And she told me that she'd sold it within an hour after I left the store. :( :( :( I never forgot the feelings associated with this experience, and 40 years later, if I recognize the "purple coat feeling" I will buy an item -even if stretches me financially.

Yesterday Mark showed me an ad on Craigslist for an affordable 8x10 camera... here it is:




and??? I thought all day at work about that damn camera...I came home and thought about it some more, and when I went to sleep, I dreamt about that camera... and so guess what? IT IS NOW MINE!

It's not a perfect object -there's a small hole in the bellows and it's a bit wobbly. but I already figured out how to stabilize the wiggle, and can make that stabilizing device in less than a day. and I can patch the hole in the bellows. plus, I can use my Schneider Kreutznach lens on there, so it's all good. AND, he threw in a couple of film holders, so I don't have to order them extra from ebay.

all told, this is a great deal, and the sassiness of my pix doesn't rely on having perfect gear anyway.

I AM SO HAPPY WITH MY NEW TOY!!
WWHHHEEEEEEEEEEE!!

from my shoot with kaylin

another plate...

more lindsey pix...

this is from the same shoot, obviously...

new work

i did a shoot with lindsey yesterday...at one point during the day, i had an idea based on how her hair looks -that it would be super sassy to to have her wet, with wet ringlets hanging down in front of her face. so i brought her a big glass of water and told her what my idea was.

she began gently dabbing her hair with water.
i said, "not damp, woman...WET!" and i excused myself to the darkroom to get/exchange plates, telling her that if she could be wet by the time i got back, that would be great! when i left she dumped the water on her head, melting her eye pencil. the eye-pencil burned her eyes, and she started crying black tears.

i began to tell her that she had black tears running down her face, then thought better of it. she wiped one side of her face, before i removed the lenscap and took the picture. :)

student work - Daniel Schales

I tried out a new assignment this term, "Animalz". I was a little worried about getting snapshots of kittens in baskets, LOL!! Anyhow, mostly people managed to add a sassy twist to the project. The 2 images below are by Daniel Schales. The first one reminds me of a fairy tale or a fable...but I'm not sure which one.



and



The model in both these pix is his wife; I'm assuming he thinks his wife is a fox. :)