I knew that we had worked quickly on the previous shoot (with Lexus Lee); but I didn’t realize how quickly. Here is the shot breakdown:

Setup #1: 2 minutes, 38 seconds. 48 proof images

Setup #2:3 minutes, 37 seconds, 65 proof images

Setup #3: 49 seconds, 15 proof images.

Shooting time: 7 minutes, 4 seconds; 130 images (two were in the car)

Total shoot time: 20 minutes from first shot to last shot; about 40 minutes total, as we drove around a bit at the ...read more

I finished reading the photo.net series ‘Becoming a More Creative Photographer‘ last weekend, and today by happenstance I had a few minutes to shoot on the way home.

But what to shoot?

Lucky me, I had printed the entire series of articles, and left them in my camera bag. All I needed to was pick out an assignment from the articles and shoot.

Just for fun I had mounted a Soligor 135mm f/2.8 on my K20D as another ‘one lens for the day’ ...read more

I’ve been shooting a lot with the Best Camera iPhone app lately, and I’ve learned to shoot what I see (rather than what I’d like to see), and to trust my instincts as to what to shoot.

What’s weird is applying this technique to shooting with a ‘real’ camera, and getting wildly different results than I’m used to; and framing shots in ways that I’d never had thought of as ‘proper’ before.

It feels good.

The last week was interesting, productive, and frustrating, all at the same time.

I was in Toronto for SecTor, a conference that’s somewhere between Blackhat, DefCon, and something more mainstream like RSA, after which I was in Vancouver for a few days of R&R, shopping, and of course, some shooting.

Actually, I had planned on doing a lot more shooting than I did. My preparations were a bit rushed, and I wasn’t really able to put together a shot list for the ...read more

A while back I posted about this digital shot I used to check exposure for a similar shot on the Diana F+ :

I got some time on Sunday night to develop the Lomography ISO 100 film after some leg work to figure out the correct time for my developer… it’s ‘Shanghai’, so for Xtol the Massive Dev Chart shows a 1+3 dilution and a 16 minute (!) soak. Here is the result, a little tweaked to match the slightly ...read more

I’ve never been really satisfied with the icons on the bottom of the Diana lens that change the aperture, and wanted more ‘exact’ information on what was going on.  After some searching, some fiddling, and some trial and error, here is a cheat card you can print and fold in half to hang from your Diana strap:

For different editable versions, click here for the source doc in OpenOffice format.

This chart is a kind of nomograph; you select your ...read more

If you are an iPhone user, and a photographer, you probably have already heard of an idea / application / book / website from Chase Jarvis called “The Best Camera“.

Overall the concept seems to borrow heavily from the Lomographic Society and their branding; lots of lomo-style images to get you fired up; lots of filters to create lomo-style images; and lots of ways to share them, right from the phone. To be fair the style isn’t owned by Lomo, ...read more

Finally, time to look at the business plan again. My timing for these posts is a bit off, but that’s more to do with trying to pace my progress here in an inverse way with what’s going on at work. A few months ago all indications were that we would wrap our projects up and be gone by now. Today, it’s more likely we’ll at least get to complete the projects, which satisfies my techno-geek self. Will I still be ...read more

First off, this isn’t about cross-dressing, like the killer in ‘Dressed to Kill’. (Great movie. Lots of little plot details. Even a bit of a photography angle, in the form of character Peter Miller, who hides a camera to catch a killer.)

Nope, this is cross-processing; the intentional developing of one type of film in chemistry intended for another. You’ve seen the look; like Kodachrome, but more vivid, darker blacks, and blown highlights, and often incorrect or unnatural colors.

When I got the ...read more

I just tried to have a roll of color slide film shot with my Diana F+ cross-processed at the local Royal Oak Wal-Mart in Calgary last night.

No Dice.

The kids looking after the photo counter were afraid of ‘ruining’ my film. That has to be one of the funniest things ever, since the chemistry of cross-processing has just that effect.

Ahhh…. kids.

So I thought I’d wait until later today, and see if I could get one of the nice day-shift techs at the ...read more