Vignette.

We had a chance to adventure north to the Mount Vernon tulip festival today. I armed myself with my standard fare, a Canon DSLR with a 100mm macro lens, and a 50mm, and a simple 35mm film camera.

What really surprised me was how much I enjoyed using my phone with the vignette application. It's grainy, imperfect, unpredictable, and.. lovely. I have a slew of more visually accurate photos that I'm proud of. But the ones that I truly love were taken with this application.




And while the pictures are nowhere near perfect, I feel like the mood of the adventure was captured better with a gritty and grainy picture than with a perfectly color balanced panorama.

Meet the Dianas!

Remember my internal struggle regarding the Diana F+ and/or the Diana Mini? I now have both. I have yet to master the F+, as I've been having entirely too much fun with the Mini.

Things I've learned so far:

1. Processing film is expensive. Even run of the mill 35mm color film.
   
2. Take your film to a specialty processing lab.
3. Black and white film is incredible. The tonal range is gorgeous.
4. ISO 400 film is my friend.
5. I like life more through a plastic lens.

B&W ISO 400:

Color ISO 400, split exposures:


Color ISO 800:

I got my favorite picture out of my photo experiments, too. Here's my family, all in one 4x6. Something about a plastic lens makes the photos turn out more relaxed and lovely... People don't get all weird about getting their picture taken if the camera is incapable of capturing every tiny flaw.


And the best part about this photo? It was taken the same day. At the same table. The first time my family has had a meal together in at least two years. It was a great day!

My Introduction to Film

The husband brought home an adorable Diana Mini for me to play with Tuesday night, along with four types of film. I stuffed my nose into the manual, loaded up my camera, and patiently waited for the skies to brighten enough to take decent pictures.

I wandered around for several hours loading up my film with thoughtfully composed images. Wandered over to one of the largest camera shops in the Seattle area and presented my film. The guy took one look at it and informed me they don't process black and white.

What. The. Heck.

Black and white film is relatively easy to process- my brother used to process his own films in our basement. After three different stops in Seattle, we finally found a place to process it. And apparently they're so backlogged they won't have it ready until Saturday.

Hmmph.

I guess part of the joy of film is the development of patience. Each little click of the shutter has to be deliberate. I know my composition skills will improve because of this, but it doesn't meant that I have to enjoy that process.

Oh, and the husband bought me three rather pricey rolls of the wrong type of film- medium format film. I guess I'll have to buy the regular Diana now... It'd be such a shame to waste it.