廢寢忘餐

The intensive printing class is finally done--for me, since I have to miss the last class next week because of the trip. I can't believe I've been spending 12+ hours a day several days a week in the dark room for the past week. It's hectic, but was definitely worth it. I love printing. Ansel Adams once said that taking a picture is like composing music score, whereas printing is like performing it. I shared this with a leica enthusiast friend last night, but he said Ansel's only for the text book :-)

Well, I know not every one buys his work/theory (but honestly, I don't know enough to find out the problem with that), but I can't agree more on the fact that printing brings life to a picture (presumably a good exposure and compostion, of course). A half a point difference in color filtration and density means a whole lot...

Oh well, I guess I'm so addicted to printing now I'm going back to do extra prints :-)

If you happen to think of taking a printing class, I would highly recommend Photographic Center Northwest (PCNW) located in Captiol Hill area. They are expensive, but it's well worth it. Not all instructors are good though, but if you take the color printing classes, you can't go wrong with Seth Thompson's class. He's been my instructor for two quarters, and I really like his style. He sets a very high bar, very picky, never settle unless it's perfect. You'll lean a whole lot from him.

The reward of all the hard work? You feel like achieving something after Seth gives an OK to a print. And, ha, I guess Arizona is way too gorgeous my classmate asked me to give him a signed final print of the Horseshoe Bend Canyon :-)

I wish I can continue doing printing in Toronto. My alma mata Ryerson seems to be a pretty good school in photography (their film school is execllent in North America, btw :)

***

It's less than three days before I take off for a month traveling solo in Europe. I'm budgeting 30 EUR a day including all meals and entertainment. Does it seem too much?

It's time to nail down all the travel details.

It's a good day for...

... trespassing!!

I'm going here, an abandoned mental hospital in Steilacoom, to shoot. If you don't see me returning by 6pm, you know where to find me...

開年飯與情書

Very spicy!!

We went to a newer restaurant Bamboo Garden, located very close to Bellevue's Toys'r'us. Before Bamboo Garden was opened, it was a Japanese restaurant called.... hum, forgot already :-) A few of us went to the then Japanese restaurant and found out that it's way too expensive for the food quality. But I'm still a bit surprised that they decided to sell their business so quickly.

The Bamboo Garden serves Xi Chuen food, and I would say it's really good--it has all what Xi Chuen food needs: 酸辣、麻辣、乾炸、怪味、椒麻、紅油... Very exciting! If you don't like spicy food, I highly recommend their 糖醋魚, the sauce is awesome!

They are having promotion right now. Dinner menu is 25% off (I heard they were doing a 50% off promotion until the end of last January. Too bad I missed it). We had 13 people, and we ordered 11 dishes, which cost only $108!

I'm going there again this Wednesday, I'll try their「 夫婦肺片」 (i.e. 麻辣牛肚加牛脷) for sure!

Up until now, my tongue is still very 麻麻麻...

Oh, if you see an older lady picking up used dishes for you, don't be fooled by her waitress look. She is actually the owner! And she's not that friendly, mind you.

Bamboo Garden
202 106th Pl NE Bellevue WA 98004
Tel: 425 688 7991

Didn't know that the Polaroid SX-70 was used in 中山美穗's 《情書》... The more I look at it, the more I'm attached...

It would be lovely if we can have meetings that are similar to what this Japanese Polaroid Life is doing. Interestingly, most of the participants are girls!

Here is another good Japanese site that is dedicated to tributing SX-70. Looking at these albums, it seems like 90% of the photographers are girls as well!

At about the same age as me, this camera has some magic power that can attract...

燒壞了腦

I wasn't feeling well today, probably it's because of yesterday's trip--slept only two hours the night before, and hauling my heavy equipments walking 10+ miles with quite some elevation gain. I felt my shoulder was burning when taking shower last night. Must be because of the camera pack.

So I went to take an afternoon "nap", actually I slept for four hours straight, and when my sister called at 6ish, I thought it's time to go work!

Read this article "Why your camera does not matter" by Ken Rockwell.

I can't agree more on what he said at the end:

Knowing how to do something is entirely different from being able to do it at all, much less do it well ...

... Having too much camera equipment is the best way to get the worst photos.

Oh well, next time I should just take the paper-weight Holga with me.

單身者關注日開心手冊

Get yourself a gift... Polaroid SX-70!!

What a romantic... bathroom :-)



The camera itself looks really romantic already. Look how slim it is when folded. The blue cartilages on its right are one-time only flash. Each flash bar has ten bulbs. But I wonder who would use these already rare flashes now? It also comes with a leather case!



When opened, the view finder will pop up, and all of a sudden it becomes an SLR!! So cool... too bad focuing is a bit difficult because of how the lens is oriented. So most of the time you need to focus on the subject first, and then recompose.



You can put on the flash in a slot right above the lens. The flash bulb is one-time use only, and the flash bar has five bulbs on each side. I tried once, and it works!! The flash is not sophisticated, but it does the job pretty well.

Operation is super easy, and apart from focuing, what you need to do is to adjust the lightness/darness (EV) knob. Oh well, most of the time it needs a bit trial and error.

Once you press the shutter, it is up to the camera to decide how long to expose the film. Once it's done exposing, the motor will roll out the film.



This camera doesn't have any compartment to hold a battery. So where does the power come from?

The secret is in the film cartilage. Each of it has a 6v zinc battery buried inside the cartilage. So every time you put in a new pack of film, you get fresh power. Smart, isn't it?

The SX-70 uses its own films-- Time Zero and SX-70 blend. The Time Zero is famous for the ability to manipulate the photo even after a few days it is developed. How so? The emulsion wont' settled down until a few days. Alternative potographers usually use tools like a crochet hook, cuiticle pusher, rounded dental tool, burnisher or any other thin, but not sharp tool and start to 'draw' on the print a few minutes after it develops.

Too bad Polaroid has decided to stop producing Time Zero since last year...



****

Went to the Facing East Taiwanese Restaurant, and turned out to be pretty good. We had a little bummer because of the table, but overall the food is good!

Holgagraphy

Just got back my long waited film from the lab! Lovely Holga!

The result is better than I expected, given that I had bad experiences with my Holga, which include the back of the camera falls off all of a sudden. The remedy? I used a couple of rubber bands wrapping around it.

Focusing is also challenging, since you can't tell anything from the viewfinder. All you can do is to make your best guess, using this guidline.

And then it comes to setting the exposure. Again, you can't do much playing with the aperture, since pratically it has no aperture setting. It has been reported that the fixed aperture is f13.3. But hey, every Holga is different, so don't rely on this too much. And bare in mind that the sunny/cloudy switch will not affect the aperture in any way.

Now comes to the shutter speed. Again, it has only one speed, which is 1/100 seconds. However it does provide a bulb mode, but your hands need to be very steady even if you put the camera on tripod. Oh well, you can probably mod the camera and add your own .

Oh, don't forget that light leaks is kind of expected in Holgagraphy :-)

Given that you have many fixed parameters with the camera, choose a film that has wider range. I used Trix 400 for the shots shown below, but a 3200 would give you more space. That said, my next roll will be Velvia 100, since I have a few of them I need to consume...

There are people out there where you can get your Holga modded. For example, you can get two aperture settings (around f8 and f11), close focusing (up to 2 feet), etc. Since the camera is so cheap and easy to hack, you may also want to DIY!

Oh, btw, if you are into BW photos, Holga do have their own Holga filter. If you don't konw yet, yellow filter reduces the brightness of blue colors that makes the photo appears more natural to human eyes. Green filter is good for shooting forestry or greenish plants. It also makes the blue sky appears more natural. Red filter increaese contrast, where sometimes it creates dramatic effects on a cloudy sky.

In Holgagraphy there is so many parameters out of our control, which is exactly where all the fun comes from.

Don't think. Just shoot!



Most information is taken from this site.

Official site: http://www.lomography.com/