Worth a 1,000 Words - Art & Photography

So last week I gave a brief overview of what lomography is. Hopefully everyone took some time to look at the lomography website and peek at all the awesome things they have to offer.  I’ve taken some of my favorite items that they have in the shop and given a brief rundown on what they do and what I think of them. Hopefully after reading you’ll be able to jump right into lomography. So without further ado I’d like to introduce…

Holga
The Holga is probably one of the most well known of all the plastic cameras. It comes in a few different colors (red, black, green, and multicolor). My friend has the multicolor and it’s really really cool. All the Holgas come with colored flashes, which is really neat. The Holga uses 120 film, but you can buy adapters so that you can use 35mm film. Holga’s are known for their dreamy colors and spontaneous light leaks. Because the camera is made out of plastic something there are holes that allow light to leak in. Some cameras work fine, but others have all sorts of crazy problems. The beauty of Holga’s and lomography is that any kind of abnormality only adds to the authenticity of picture. Try experimenting with expired film and see what kind of crazy images you can come up with.

Diana
I personally own a Diana and love it with my whole heart. Like the Holga the Diana takes 120 film, but it can’t also use 35mm film. Dressed in a dreamy blue color, Diana’s don’t come with a color flash, but you can buy the DianaF+, which comes with a flash that has colored filters to go with it. My personal favorite thing about the Diana is that it has a pinhole setting. I can easily switch between shooting regular pictures and pinhole pictures. Diana’s can also remove their lenses and get different ones. I have a fish eye, wide angle, macro, and regular 55mm. All of the lenses play up the Diana’s most well known feature of vignetting. Vignetting is when the edges of a photo fade to black almost creating a fuzzy black border around the whole image. This feature allows you to take very soft fairytale like images with ease.

SuperSampler
Funnest camera I’ve ever owned. Forget about creating a composition, there isn’t even a view finder! You basically have to guess where you’re taking the picture and cross your fingers as to the results. The camera shoots on 35mm film that ends up being broken up into 4 sections. The camera has four lenses that take four pictures in concession. Once the shutter is released the camera will capture whatever action is going on in front of it by taking four pictures. This camera has no flash so it can only be used outside on a sunny day, but it’s a great way to forget about rules and just have fun.

Colored Ring Flash
One of my favorite lomography accessories is the colored ring flash. If you’ve never seen a ring flash is latches on to the front of the camera and has 4 flashes positioned in a circle around the lens. The position of the flashes allows the whole subject to be covered by the flash. The colored ring flash comes with a bunch of great colors gels that go over the flashes to create amazing colors in your photos. Another cool thing about this flash is that with some crafting it can work on most regular DSRL/SLR cameras.

Books and Other Paraphernalia
My favorite thing about ordering from Lomography.com is getting the books that come with most of the packages. The books are loaded with all sorts of fun facts and pictures from people all over the world. My favorite book is the one that comes with the DianaF+. The stories and photos that it has are amazing and it even has interviews with some well known photographers who use the Diana on a regular basis. Also from the website you can order film, bags, and photo albums. Although orders can take up to a week to come in I’ve never gotten in a order that didn’t bring a smile to my face.

Challenge of the Week: Buy a cheap lomography camera. If ordering online isn’t an option most lomography products are being sold at Urban Outfitters. Check your local store to see if they have any cameras that interest you.

Happy Photographing!
Cate

 Hi everyone! Sorry for my absence last week. Things got crazy at camp and I didn’t have a chance to write, but I’m back this week with a full review of the program I took and also some suggestions for other programs.

The program I took was three weeks at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City. The college is located on 23rd St. between 2nd and 3rd Aves. I spent the three weeks living in the dorms, where curfew is 10  on weeknights and 11 on weekends. Curfew gets tiring, but you learn to work around it. The dorms themselves are like small apartments. There are 4 and 6 person rooms. Both rooms have a small kitchen and bathroom. The 6 person rooms have 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and the 4 person rooms have 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. The area around the school is packed with food, shops, and fun. A quick walk will lead you to the 6 or the NWR subway lines, and from there you can pretty much get anywhere in the city. I spent many of my nights at St. Mark’s Place which is only 2 stops on the 6. At St. Mark’s Place there’s tons of places to eat and shop or just walk around and hang with friends. I never had a problem finding something to do, so as far as the location of the program, I can’t complain one bit.

Classes meet Monday through Friday from 9-12 and 1-4 at one of the SVA buildings. Depending on what program you’re in determines how long of a walk you have. I was lucky to have a close building, but one of my roomates had a 15 minute walk each morning. The building where my class was, was clean and well air conditioned. The darkrooms that we used were filled with materials that worked well and I never had a problem with faulty equipment. The teacher I had was really cool and kept class exciting. Below is an outline of how I spent my 3 weeks in class.

Week One:
Monday- Photo Intro, Lunch, Pictures in Tompkins Sq. Park
Tuesday- Gallery Hopping in Chelsea, Lunch, Movie
Wednesday- How to Print, Lunch, Printing
Thursday- Studio Lighting, Lunch, Printing
Friday- Coney Island all Day

Week Two:
Monday- Printing, Lunch, Printing
Tuesday- Shooting nudes in the Studio, Lunch, Printing
Wednesday- Movie, Lunch, Printing
Thursday- Fashion Shoot Field Trip, Lunch, Printing
Friday- Staten Island Ferry

Week Three:
Monday- Printing, Lunch, Printing
Tuesday- Q&A with Adam Weiss, Lunch, Printing
Wednesday- Work on Zines, Lunch, Printing
Thursday- Printing, Lunch, Printing
Friday- Critique, Lunch, Hang Show

As you can see my weeks were jam packed with all kinds of things to do. On top of activities in class, the program offered fun things to do outside of class, like trips to museums and Broadway shows. Overall I had an amazing three weeks and I learned a ton.  Hopefully I’ll be able to take another class next year. If you’re looking for more information on the program go HERE. If the city really isn’t the place for you than check out similar programs at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Art Institute of Chicago, Parsons, Pratt, or the Art Institute of Boston.

Challenge of the Week: Look into a summer program for next year, it’s never too early to start planning.

Happy Photographing!
Cate

Over the next three weeks I’ll be taking a class on color photography. The class covers studio shooting and making prints in the darkroom. Going into the class I had a background in digital and black and white photography. With this background knowledge I didn’t think I would have very much difficulty learning this new type of photography, but things never seem to work out the right way. Although these two backgrounds did help in some ways, color photography is a whole new creature in itself. Shooting, of course, is the same as digital except the fact that one doesn’t receive instant gratification by being able to view the image immediately. The real difference comes when making prints in the darkroom. The place where I’m taking the class does not have the materials for students to develop his or her film, but they do have photo developing equipment. This is where the real challenge begins.

I’ve spent many hours working in black and white darkrooms. I’m used to the process of dipping photos into different chemicals and watching as my image magically appears on the paper in front of me, but never have I worked in a color lab.

My first concern, pitch blackness. Working in black and white labs is made easier by the blowing amber or red lights that don’t affect the paper. Unlike black and white paper, color paper is EXTREMELY light sensitive, which means the darkroom is completely dark at all times. Sure it makes walking into walls, people, and enlargers very easy, but what are a few bruises? Once I made sense of where everything was and learned how to navigate to my station without injuring myself it was time to make my first contact sheet.

For the people who don’t know what a contact sheet is, it’s simply a proof sheet of  a roll of film to use as a guide when making prints. Sure make a contact sheet, no big deal, but you try aligning a piece of paper and a sheet of negatives in complete darkness, it’s no so easy. This was the second challenge I came across, making sure the paper was aligned right so that borders weren’t crooked and the picture was centered. Sure enough after about 20 prints I got the hang of paper placement. With my contact sheet completed it was time to make my first image.

When printing a black and white image the two main things you have to worry about are the light balance and the contrast. After these two things have been taken care of a decent print usually follows, but in color it’s all about color correction. Every picture consists of the colors red, magenta, yellow, green, cyan, and blue. Once an image is printed it takes multiple prints to correctly color the photo. These numerous prints take up hours and result in the discouragement of not even wanting to make the print at all. All that can be said is, “don’t give up.” Although the first few prints are a true challenge I have been assured that it can only go up from here, and I sure hope so!

Challenge of the Week: Check out classes from local colleges or community centers. You never know what kind of things you may learn from a photography class.

Happy Photographing!
Cate

In the last week I have spent a lot of my time browsing photo blogs and photo-based websites. Upon my browsing I stumbled upon JPG Magazine. The magazine is almost entirely based on it’s online community. Users create a profile and then from there they can upload stories and photographs with the goal of being published in the JPG Magazine. The magazine, which is released 6 times a year, can be found at Barnes and Noble or in your very own mailbox (by subscribing).

How It All Works:
Getting published in the magazine takes six steps. Not all submissions are published, but it’s better to submit your work with the hope of getting published than no hope at all.

Step One:  Take great pictures and upload them to your computer. The pictures must be  at least 2200 pixels tall or wide and completely original.

Step Two: After your pictures have been uploaded to your account you can submit them to a theme. The website breaks down it’s picture categories into themes so that every picture has a home. Each picture can only go into one theme so choose wisely!

Step Three: Before production can be started on a new issue the themes have to be released. Once  a theme is chosen for the magazine all the pictures in that theme get put up for votes.

Step Four:  Now that the pictures can be voted on, voting starts. Your friends and other JPG users can vote on the pictures they think qualify to be in the magazine.

Step Five: Once the voting ends the editors of the magazine make the final selection of photos.

Step Six: Your picture lands itself in the JPG Magazine for thousands of eyes to gaze at.

Challenge of the Week: Make an account for JPG here. Submit some photos and link me to your account to I can become your contact.

Happy Photographing!
Cate

The concept of a pinhole camera has been alive since around 500 B.C. Greek philosophers like Aristotle wrote about the naturally occurring patterns created by the very first pinhole cameras. At that point in time many scientists believed that vision was possible because rays of light were admitted by the eyes there for allowing them to see the objects around them. It wasn’t until 10th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer, and physicist Ibn al-Haytham discovered that vision was made possible by eyes allowing rays in, and not projecting rays out, that the idea of a pinhole camera really made any sense. From there Ibn al-Haytham went on to create the first camera obscura (light tight box). Later scientists such as Gemma Frisius and Giambattista della Porta would write about why pinhole images are upside down and further develop the pinhole’s features.

Pinhole cameras were never widely used, but for a long time they were the only thing that people had. The name pinhole comes from the camera not having a lens. The camera consists of a “pinhole” that allows a tiny amount of light to pass through onto the film and produce an image. The smaller the hole the clearer the image, and the smaller the hole the longer the shutter has to be kept open to allow light in.  Exposures can last anywhere from 3 seconds to 30 minutes. Although now there are some digital pinhole cameras most are film cameras. Pinhole cameras definitely takes some skill to use because they are completely manual, but with some practice anyone can use one.

While researching pinhole cameras I came across a website that had free printable pinhole cameras. I figured I would give one a try, so here are some pictures from my endeavor.

The finished product looks fine, but there’s something wrong with how the film turns so it’s going to be hard to takes pictures. Hopefully I’ll be able to at least use one roll.

Challenge of the Week: Go here if you want to make your own pinhole camera. My only suggestion is printing out everything and reading through the directions first because there are some things you need that you may not have lying around the house. Also on the sheet are some tips to shooting and getting the film developed. Good luck!

Happy Photographing!
Cate