On my easel: Portrait WIP

I've got a few projects for May, and one of them is to take part in Paint Party Friday every week this month (and hopefully afterwards too, as much as possible) to help me get my painting mojo back. I can feel it coming back, but very slowly, and so I've only got a work in progress to share today. But I'm sharing it anyway, again to motivate me to finish it by next Friday. I've still got a lot of work to do on her, but I so enjoyed painting a portrait again.

Apart from a guided visit to the Bührle Collection on Saturday, I'm looking forward to spending most of the weekend painting, and finally taking my new Polaroid SX-70 out for a walk. Just hope it won't start raining again.

Happy Paint Party Friday, wishing you an inspiring and creative weekend!

A new addition to the familiy

My little family of cameras just got a new member - my Polaroid SX-70 arrived last Thursday. I only ordered it the Saturday before, from the US, and I impatently checked the tracking service about every five minutes. Of course I was secretly hoping that it would arrive before the weekend, but never really thought it possible, especially as Friday was a public holiday here. I thought I'd have to wait til Monday, and so I was especially thrilled when it did actually arrive on Thursday. And what a beauty it is.

Of course it isn't new at all. None of these original Polaroid cameras are. But while it is not the oldest one in my little collection of cameras, it's certainly among the older ones, and probably the oldest of the ones I actually use. The Polaroid SX-70 was the first instant SLR camera on the market, and the first model, with a metal body, was manufactured in the early to mid 1970. Now I don't know when my model was made exactly, but I like the thought that this camera and me might well be exactly the same age.

The design of these cameras is just so beautiful and clever. They fold flat and to use them, you pull it up into position. This proofed to be a bit tricky with mine. At first, I actually didn't manage to open it at all. I was pulling quite hard, and I was getting afraid of rippint the whole thing apart. But eventually, it folded open, and I'm slowly learning to get the hang of it, although I still have a bit of a problem with it at times. Because of this, and because it looks so clean and unscratched, and smells almost new, I believe that it might not have been used a lot.

Of course I had to try it out immediately, even though I knew it was probably too dark. The SX-70 films are a much lower ISO than the 600 and so need plenty of light. Thursday was a grey and dull evening, and on Friday, it was raining all day and looked more like a late November afternoon than a spring day. I would have loved to take my camera out to the forest, but intead I had to try it out inside. But I was still pleased with the first results. You can see how, with the manual focus, you can get much more DOF than with my autofocus one (even if it's a bit out of focus here).

With the one taken the next day, on rainy Friday, I managed to get a slightly better focus.

And when it stopped raining for a few minutes, I quickly popped out for a photo of the lovely dogwood bush outside the house. I can't wait to take it out for a walk in better light!

I'm thinking about doing a little project with this camera. Not a 365 though, although that would no doubt an interesting project and a great way to get to know and learn how to use this camera. But it feels a bit too much, and it would be expensive too. But I've got some other ideas, I just haven't quite decided which one.

Photo Sunday May

I've been taking so many more photos again this year, that I have decided to post a little series this months. One or more photos every Sunday, without (m)any words.

ap-pre-ci-ate. judge the value of; understand or enjoy fully in the right way; be thankful for

Around us. Within us. Sometimes so easy. Sometimes oh so hard.

Blooming blossoms

I'm so glad I shared my wip background last week. It was just the motivation I needed to get back to my little table easel and keep working on it. I've been so inspired by all the beautiful blossoms everywhere this spring, and have been capturing them with different cameras, and I wanted to capture them on canvas too. I'm not quite sure if it's finished yet, although it might well be. I'll have to let it sit for a bit until I know.

I have to say, though, that the photo does not all show the picture as it is. I don't know what's wrong, but Blogger seems to completely mess up the colours when uploding it. This is not at all how the edited image looks in Lightroom or Photoshop, and definitely nothing like the original. The background is much subtler and the blues are much brighter and softer. It's far too busy in this photo, the original isn't. It's a grey and rainy day here today, and very dark, so there's no point in trying to take another picture, and I don't know how to fix the problem in Blogger. Or maybe it's the browers. I don't know. But because it's friday, and therefore Paint Party Friday, I'm sharing it anyway, even though I'm not at all happy with this representation. You just have to take my word for it that it looks a lot better in real. And I'll try to get a better photo once those dark and heavy clouds have lifted. Although that might take a while.

My painting mojo has been gone for so long, that it actually felt rather strange to pick up a paint brush again after all that time. But I hope that it will finally be coming back now.

The fascination with Polaroids

Since I figured out how to use my camera and film to get proper results, I've become quite excited about the whole Polaroid experience. I never had a Polaroid back then when they were popular, and I don't think I've ever even taken a photo until about a year ago, when I found a Polaroid in a second hand shop. It really was a great find. The camera, a Polaroid 635CL Supercolor Jubilee, came complete with box, instructions and the little plastic band tightly wrapped around the straps. In other words, it looked like it never actually had been used at all. I knew that film for the original Polaroid cameras had become available again after the company shut down and the factory was bought by The Impossible Project, and had wanted to try it out for some time but didn't have a camera. So of course I was very pleased to finally find one, and one that was basically brand new, despite being a good 20 years old.

The fascination back then, when Polaroid cameras were first produced, of course was the instant factor. Instead of having to wait for your roll of film to be developed, you could see your photo instantly, within minutes. Ironically, that instant experienced has now become almost the opposite. With the new Impossible films, the image takes about 30-40 minutes for colour films and about 10 minutes for black & white to develop. They also need to be kept in a dark place, or upside down until they're fully developed, for a good result. For me, that is part of the excitement. For the instant experience, I have my DSLR and my iPhone, where I can see the image immediately. With the Polaroid, you take a photo, and then quickly put it somewhere dark, such as between the pages of a book. Then you wait (im)patiently, and after about half an hour, you take a first sneak peek. Sometimes, the images is already looking good, sometimes, it still needs some more time. 

The images have a certain feel to them, they look a bit dreamy, sort of remote, which I like a lot, and which I think suits the old cameras. For sharp and crispy colours, I have my DSLR. I also like that you never quite know how your photo turns out. Although of course you'll learn from experience the more photos you take. So while I would delete an out of focus taken with my DSLR immediately, with the Polaroids, I don't actually mind when they turn out a bit blurry. It's much more about capturing a certain moment.

 And sometimes, you get some funny effects, like with the photo below, where I was accidentally blocking the film ejection slot with my finger, preventing the image to come out smoothly just for a fraction of a second, which in turn created that funny effect at the bottom. I find it fascinating, how fragile the whole process is.

I also like how you need to put much more thought into taking a photo. When I go for a one hour walk in the nearby forest with my DSLR, I easily come home with 100+ photos. With a Polaroid film, you have 8 images, and the films are expensive, so you don't go snapping here and there, but you really have to think about when and where you want to take a photo. Which view, which moment you want to capture, if the light, the distance, the subject are such that you can expect a good result and not waste an expensive photo (and believe me, I've wasted a few!). The whole process makes you slow down, think, and be patient. It's just a completely different experience than with my DSLR (and I love my DSLR and shooting digital).

The only thing I'm not so happy about is that my scanner isn't quite able to reproduce the photos accurately. I've tweaked them slightly in Lightroom to get them closer to the originals, but the colours just aren't quite right. And those spots you can see on some of them is simply the dust on the scanner. The originals really do look a lot better, and are nice and clean. But I guess that's part of the experience too.

A little painting work in progress, and some Polaroid success

What a week this has been. One of those that you just want to move into some dark corner at the very back of your mind and never think about again. Just delete, and move on.

So on to something more cheerful. I have taken out my paints and brushes again, although I haven't really got very far yet. I've been taking a lot more photos again lately, and dived back deep into post processing in general, and Lightroom in particular. It's time consuming, and didn't leave much time for other things. But it is also a lot of fun and the beautiful trees that are in full bloom, showing off their delicate white and pink blossoms, are just making me happy. I just can't stop taking photos of them, with my DSLR, my iPhone, and my Polaroid.

I've taken out and been playing around with my Polaroid camera again, and I think that I might finally get the hang of it. After having wasted about three or four films, including a colour one with silver frame that I particularly liked and that the shop I buy the films from doesn't seem to have anymore. (A little tip: read the instructions...). With the first one, it was pure luck that it turned out alright, with the other two, well, they were after I read those instructions... The scanner doesn't do them quite justice, the colours are much nicer. But I'm really quite excited about the Polaroid experience again, and I'll be taking my camera out much more often now. And without wasting quite so much film anymore.

But back to the painting. I haven't that much to show yet, only a background - which isn't even finished yet. But I'm sharing it anyway - and linking up with the inspiring Paint Party Friday - as a reminder to myself to keep going and finish it, so that I'll have something proper to share next week.

Penguins and Seals

I still got so many photos of amazing creatures left, that I'm going to split them (well, some of them) into two separate posts. This one is for the Humboldt Penguins and the Common Seals. The penguins didn't really do much, but they were fun to watch. And they kept standing or sitting still or moving only little, which was of course perfect for taking pictures of them.

I don't know how long we spent watching the seals, but it was quite some time (and long enough to miss the little train back to town by just a few minutes). They were one of the first we went to see in the morning after we arrived, and we went back to them again in the afternoon. N lent me his big zoom lens to get some really nice close ups. It was fascinating to watch them swim and dive (they like to swim on their backs) and to stick their heads out of the water and observe their surroundings. Their noses look a bit like those of gorillas!

One last post with more sea creatures to follow soon.