Thanks, Mojave!
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue?
Something old is easy. I've been to San Francisco a couple of times on business, and love that city. In some ways it's a stereotypical California city and other than joggers and baristas it's like the whole thing is asleep until 8 AM. I'd get up at about 5:30 and hit the streets. Without fog, it's just blows me away.
This is with a Rollei 35S and Ilford XP2 Super. I bought it the week my daughter was born. I shot with a Nikon in college, put down the camera for maybe a decade or more, then stumbled across the little Rollei while getting prints of my newborn in a then-local shop. Now I've got about a dozen cameras, a mix of 35mm and MF, and if I could have only one camera it would be the Rollei.
Something new? Crap. Who came up with this idea?
I posted this elsewhere already, but I picked up a Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim for free, and was surprised to find how much I liked it. I've amassed three or four 35mm plastic fantastic cameras as I try to figure out who I am as a photographer. I think the whole toy camera and selective focus event horizon is really about asking what makes a compelling image. I used to be a decent technician but my content always fell short, so for me plastic was a way to try to force myself into taking a new look.
I've never really shot with a lens as short as the UWS before, and I like how it can really give a sense of presence, almost voyeuristic sometimes. I know the camera is going to explode any second now, and it makes me want to hunt down a bunch of short glass for one of my other cameras.
Something borrowed. Without posting digital, I suppose I'll cheat.
For Christmas I keep asking for a Holga. Two years ago my wife balked because shipping to Alaska was more than the camera. Last year she found she could get me a Holga lens with a Nikon mount pretty cheap and stuffed it in my stocking.
I was hoping it would be crappier.
Every time I shoot in color I usually think I should never shoot in color again, but for a standard family snapshot I think I got lucky. Thank you Kodak.
Something blue.
The Rollei again with my first roll of Ektar. I like how the Rollei forces you to slow down. Scale focus. You can barely trust the light meter. I second-guess everything and screw up half the time over-thinking the problem, so I'm always ecstatic when I get it right. This specific cheat is, "Something in the middle of the tank will be in focus, and the blacks will be black."
I still have no scanner of my own. The neg looks good, but the crappy lab scan thrashed the contrast a bit and I fiddled with it in Picasa to bring the blacks back down.
