this image was originally underexposed but i was able to salvage it by bringing the levels up during scanning. the resulting image came out grainy and the dust and scratches were obvious -- that it looks cool.

Contrived Randomness (a paradox) . . .

... if there is such a thing

my first holga images

i'm so excited about this holga. it's a cheap toy camera... ridiculously lo-fi. the brackets and cover plate began falling apart when i got it brand new. i had to tape them up to prevent light leaks on the exposed film. yes, it's a film camera. you remember what a film is, don't you? to advance the film you have to wind it manually, and you need to make sure you advance it far enough for the next shot -- otherwise you'll get an overlap or a double exposure, which could be cool too.

see more of my new lomography album

Getting Those Sprocket Holes with a 35mm Film Scanner

I’m fascinated with photos that have sprocket holes. But such images are very difficult to scan using a 35mm film scanner. On a single pass, it will scan the entire image except for the holes. I’ve discovered that to get around this limitation is to scan in fragments, and then piece them all together. As I’m scanning, I would save each fragment as individual tiff file. Once I have all the fragments, I then export them to a photo stitching software. Most photo editors (like Photoshop) have some kind of photo stitching feature. I use Canon’s Photo Stitch, which came bundled with my EOS Camera. Any similar product should work as well. Usually the color tone of each fragment would vary but that gets normalized once the software process is done. If I was careful in scanning all of the fragments, I would end up with a seamless image like the one below.

But usually I’m not that careful – so instead the result is a distorted image, which could be a good thing depending on what I’m trying to achieve like this one.

If I’m not satisfied with the processed image, I’ll go manual. I’ll open the files in a photo editor (usually I’ll use Corel Paint Shop Pro), and layer each fragment manually – just as one would put together pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. Now I know that each fragment has a slightly different color tone. I can fix that by matching the colors but that would take forever. And some fragments are crooked, and so they would not align well. I can also fix that by rotating any crooked fragment—but that is too much work for me. So I leave them that way, and tell people that the final image is supposed to look that way – “it’s art, you know.” Anyway, I think most of the time the final image looks cool. Don’t you think so?

Visitation

and i keep coming back
don't know why

rumination

somewhere in the past
long time ago
now obscured

i love my bicycle

taken using polaroid

vintage letter added as overlay
and it's not even my bicycle
but i love it... actually i just love the picture
because it's a polaroid
and because i took it
whoa...

[polaroid 600 film at $2 a pop, old town pasadena, while waiting for my wife's car from the shop]

Muddy

In memory of the Hoochie-coochie man

i forgot to bring my umbrella...

"sometime ago... it was wet... cold... and gray... and cold... and i forgot to bring my umbrella..."

Laguna Volleyball Nerfs

Last Monday was Labor day here at the States. Rose and I brought Mimi to the beach -- Laguna Beach to be exact. I was able to play around with my Holga and the converted Canon a590is, which I used to shoot this scene -- a bunch of suave young volleyball nerfs playing at the court. Okay, that was not fair... I shouldn't call them nerfs. They were merely bums. How's that?

An Evangelical Disaster

too many churches sprouting on the urban landscape... too many fading fast...

saki, anyone?

anyone up for sAKi?

dobro... play it like a guitar should

and you thought i forgot how to play da guit-aarhh...