Honey Have You Seen My Polaroid Camera?

“Honey, Have you seen my old Polaroid camera?”

“Yeah, I gave it to Goodwill along with your vinyl records because I heard they stopped making the film.”

“You did what????”

If you don’t own a Polaroid camera, you probably know someone who does.  Most likely a parent, or grandparent, or cousin. Where are these cameras now?  Probably in a closet, or trunk, or buried in a heap up in the attic. Or, you might find one for $4.00 at a flea market.   No respect, considering what Popular Photography Magazine said many years ago, ” Like television, Polaroid photography is one of those processes that permits technically unsophisticated mortals to perform technological miracles.”  And so this is how these instant cameras were marketed, sold at Kmart and at the drugstore as an easy way around complicated photography.  They were sold door to door, and on TV, and everyone had at least one.  When my Father passed away, I found a Land Camera and two pristine SX 70′s up on a shelf next to a shoe box containing a Colt 45 pistol…

Then we had the era of Warhol and Mapplethorpe, and suddenly things changed as the artists discovered the inherent beauty of this once thought of utilitarian device.  Fast forward to the digital era and all those “unsophisticated mortals” now have a new way to capture an image instantly, and so Polaroid dies an ugly death, leaving the old school artist’s in the dust.  ( sorry for the drama)

Enter the Impossible Project, a group of visionaries on a quest to resurrect Polaroid film.  Well, they have done it, but apparently not to perfection.  You see there are a few secrets of science that lay buried in the ruble, thus we have to wrestle a bit it with these new films.  Which brings me to the point of this post. PHOTOWORKS IS HAVING A CLASS ON HOW TO USE THE NEW IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT FILMS!  Here are a few photos that show why a class and some simple tutoring will make using the new films more enjoyable.

oops, I didn’t know that you had to shield this from light, looks cool, but I might try again.

okay, that’s getting the hang of it.

by James de Leon ( what you will learn how to do in this class)

So all of you Polaroid shooters dig out that old camera, and come on down to photoworks on April 22nd to see first hand what all the fuss is about surrounding the new era of Polaroid. http://www.facebook.com/events/320455021347683/

The Holga Walkers

Scene 1:  Camera pans down to see a group of blood thirsty zombies taking pictures of anything they can find.  Graffiti, spider webs,  telephone wires, and pigeons are no match for this crazed bunch.   Close up shot reveals not actual zombies, but mere mortal toy camera enthusiasts.  It’s not the Walking Dead, it’s the Photoworks Holga Workshop and Walkabout.  These are not scary monsters, just scary talented photographers trying to push the envelope from every angle.  When the locals in a small town see us lurking toward their small houses and rusty trucks, they tend to run and hide.  The site of the plastic holga camera can instill fear in some, but in the right hands it’s not a blood sucker at all, it’s a new means of expression, and it cannot be stopped.

Happy Halloween, and if you should be out and about and see one of the holga walkers, don’t be scared.  You are safe as long as you don’t look in to the flash.

                                                                                                                           lock and load

• 
• spooky holga persoT

dh

Like A Kid In A Camera Store

I grew up in the sixties and seventies in Southern California and my father, an avid photographer used to take me to many camera stores.  He bought me my first Kodak Instamatic when I was nine, and though it is long gone, it has been replaced by an exact replica, as  I now collect cameras.  These old camera stores were cool with all the iconography and signage of the era, the  Kodak displays, and the faint smell of stop bath from the back room.  My dad could spend an hour chatting f-stops and fixer dilution with the guy behind the counter.  Maybe he’d pickup a new wide angle lens, or a yellow filter, or maybe just some lens cleaning tissue.  There are few such places left, but most have gone from darkrooms to self serve kiosks, and from negatives to pixels. The only cameras marketed to kids today are based on lame cartoon characters, though back in the day there were of plenty Barbie cameras too. ( we can argue Barbie v Dora The Explorer later)

Along with the recent resurgence of film has come a new generation of analog camera lovers.  When you combine that with return of “Polaroid” style instant films and Polaroid camera users you get kind of a Father and Son meeting all over again.  At Photoworks, I thought it would be fun to sell a few used cameras.  I started out with some Polaroids, and now have all sorts of used film cameras.  I can’t keep the stuff on the shelves, and the whole vibe of the shop has picked up with the new camera offerings.

Now I’m searching eBay for SX-70 cameras, and old signs to decorate the shop.  Everyday some new camera comes in the mail.  I clean them up, put them on display, and then they are gone.  For the first time in 23 years, I have people asking me for a ” 28mm nikkor” as if I’m an actual camera store.  I say, “let me check in the back for you,” even though there is no “back.”  So, I am clearly enjoying all of this camera business, and something about it has rekindled some nostalgia in me.   Maybe we’ll have to bring back the old darkroom, now that would make my Dad proud.

Come to Papa

If You Love Her, Get Her A Camera

Been looking at the new Nikon 7000/ million, some camera huh?  Looks like you can shoot in deep space with that thing.  Despite my passion for film, you’d have to be nuts not to want a camera like this.  My birthday is in May.

Need to get my betrothed something for V Day, and would like to avoid a Hallmark moment.  I found this amazing camera here.

The Lady Carefree, which I believe used to be available on makeup counters in your finer department stores.  An unfortunate name for a camera especially if you’re a dude or a feminist…  So I will present this little gift today and see what happens.  She will probably ask for the iphone 4, but this is better because it comes with a rose.

above from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32214524@N00/1806297604

Holga Hot Tub Time Machine

I wanted to remind everyone that there is still time to sign up for the big holga workshop on Sat Aug 21st.

get your camera wet

You can find the details in our flickr group.http://www.flickr.com/groups/photoworkssf/  We’ll teach you a bit about the holga camera, we’ll go down the coast and shoot some pictures, and then we’ll drink beer and get naked n the photoworks SF hot tub. Sound fun? How about everything before the getting naked part?

As a bonus we’ll be printing a magazine to commemorate the event.  The images will be pulled from what we shoot that day.  I am also thinking about some holga related activities for the workshop.  Holga relay race, holga toss, musical holgas, holga truth or dare, and of course, the holga dance contest.  So, if haven’t yet  signed up, get a hold of me here at photoworks.  Space in the hot tub is limited.

dh

Ain’t No Sunshine

I’ve lived in the SF/Bay Area for 30 years, most of my adult life.  I love it, but I will never get used to the dreary summers.  I’m glad I don’t live in the heat and humidity of the East Coast, that would suck, but man the fog is bringing me down.  I feel like a need a vitamin D shot or a tanning booth.  I have no circulation, the plants are not growing, and there ain’t no lovin’. My dog is refusing to be walked.  Anyone else in a foul mood?  I shot a roll of black and white film over the weekend.  I used a yellow filter to help with the grey day, but my photos still look bleak.  I also shot a roll of color and my photos came out black and white.  This summer is especially foggy, even more so down on the coast where I live.  I feel like Khan from Star Trek having been banished to a dead planet.

Yes, fog can be nice, keeps everybody cool, there is less crime, but drinking tea huddled next to the heater in August is not normal.  I saw where this is the coldest summer since 1972.  I check the forecast and it’s “fog and low clouds, fog and low clouds.”   It’s concerning because I’m putting on a picture taking class this month.  The supply list goes something like, bring camera, tripod, and film.  I guess I’ll need to add, blankets, parka, and a thermos of hot cocoa.

Bundle up, it’s summertime.

socked in

dh

Hipstamatic..cool or lame??

Talk about conflicted.  I’m browsing through facebook the other day and see some photos from an old friend (aquaintance), and I see all these trippy looking shots.  But wait, this dude doesn’t have a creative bone in his body, so what gives?  I doubt my old friend has taken a darkroom class.  Could it be that my long lost pal from Orange County has been turned on to the holga culture?  Nope.  He’s found hipstamatic and he has become, well….”hip.”  Is this a good thing, or do you somehow need to earn the right to this level of creativity?  Is it sacrilege to use a digital facsimile to imitate a 1960′s look?  I do it to some extent in my shop when we apply a sloppy border mask via photoshop.

When I first saw hipstamatic or “losermatic” as I heard someone say, I thought, man this is genius.   I know we all wish we would have thought it up ourselves, but it pains us because it’s one more cool thing gone mainstream. I guess this reminds me of how I felt when I heard Nick Drake playing in a VW commercial.  I wanted to puke because my beloved tortured folk singer was  now stuck between sports and weather on the 6 o’clock news.  So, if my 16 year old niece buys the Blackkeys black and white app and makes her phone shots into something fantastic, does that invalidate every print every made in a darkroom?

I’m the guy who coined the phrase, “my camera is not a phone, and my phone is not a camera.”  Yet, is there some good that can come from Hipstamatic?  Does it matter how we get exposed to coolness?  Who needs art school, buy an app.  Lot’s of questions from me today, so the verdict is….cool or lame?? I’m sayin’ lame, but I wish I would have thought it up first!

Would love to hear from all of you on this.

dh

The real deal, or shove it up your app.

Camera Heaven

No, my camera is not malfunctioning. This image is by design, but if it wasn’t, I’d be looking for a repair shop. Camera Heaven is a camera geek paradise stock full of Nikons, Leicas, Hasselblads, box cameras, and all things photographic. It’s main function is to repair your prized pieces, or just make your point and shoot digital work again. I know this is a good place because there is stuff piled up up everywhere. Every good repair shop is a mess, right?

People ask me all the time: Where can I repair my camera, and until now, I’ve never really had a good answer. So if your camera needs a little help, or maybe just a good cleaning (film and digital), bring it down to Photoworks and I’ll get it over to “my guy” at Camera Heaven.

Anything Photo Related

Judging by my last pathetic post, it seems I’ve hit the wall in terms of fresh blog stuff. So I’ve enlisted the aid of my wordsmith buddy Donald Ord. He has lots to say about a variety of topics. I’ve asked for “anything photo related.” Here is some of what’s in Donald’s head:

CAMERA

 

For Christmas about four years back my girlfriend, now my wife, bought me my first digital camera in an attempt to bring me into this century. I had worked for about a dozen years in film editing, but that came to an end at about the same time folks stopped using film in the process of making them.

 

I didn’t really make it into this century, but I do love the camera. I was told that I could make these mp4 movie images, which I have, or that I could use it to play songs, which I have not, but what I mainly do with it is take pictures. There were a number of weddings the following year, 2004, which took us to places such as Denver, Portland, Montreal, then down through Vermont to Cape Cod. We enjoyed these trips, though in New England we couldn’t help but encounter Red Sox fans. One thing people forget about Winslow Homer was how he started to paint more and more out of New England once Red Sox fans started appearing on the landscape.

 

What I liked about the camera was that it was tiny, and could easily be stuck in a pocket. Apparently it was the kind used in the movie “Tomb Raider”, which I never saw. Never was really into Angelina Jolie, even before she started using the same accent for ancient or medieval roles. Something about the big lips. Folks make a big deal out of Anna Kournikova and Scarlett Johansson, but again, there’s that big lip thing. It’s not as if Ms. Johansson would be out of options without them, and as for Ms. Jolie, did she never watch “Deliverance” and the trouble her pop almost got into with the hillbilly that didn’t rape Ned Beatty on account of the “pretty mouth” thing?

 

Back to the camera. The problem with it is the amount of pictures I can take. The card that came with the camera was 64 mb, which took me to about the end of June 2004, through the last wedding, including a stop in Plymouth on the way to Logan. By deleting a photo or two, I was able to make room for a couple of shots of Plymouth Rock. One would think that if the Pilgrims were going to travel so far in a boat in order to inflict Puritanism on countless generations they would at least have landed on something more substantial than Plymouth Rock. You go somewhere like Copenhagen, where there are very few Red Sox fans, when they have something really little to photograph like the Little Mermaid, they let you know it’s really little). Anyway, Rock plus Christmas, four weddings, a party or two and a handful of mp4s gave me room to stuff 313 pictures on the original card, which having been born on 3/13 was pretty perfect.

 

Then girlfriend, yet to be wife, goes and buys me this Magilla card, way more powerful than the original. Since then we’ve been to Yosemite, Germany, Buenos Aires, Sea Ranch and attended more parties and weddings. Don’t think I’m anywhere close to filling this card, and for a while there, when I wanted to show somebody a photo of say, the ’76 Olympic pool, I’d have to press a button a few hundred times before remembering, Montreal…that’s on the 313 card.

 

Finally we got married, and my wife took first one card, and then the other, and shoved them in to this thing she calls a device, and shoved the device into one of the computers, so now all I have to do is reach behind the computers and press this button on another device, the one that lets me switch from the stubby, Ned Beatty shaped PC over to the taller, more elegant Mac, which I use to peruse photos in a better way to locate that Olympic pool, but really, not any easier than going up to the attic and opening a suitcase and pulling out envelopes containing just 36 photos thank you, from say 1978, and reminiscing about how folks like Ron Guidry and Bucky Dent fought the good fight.

 

Anybody notice how it wasn’t until everybody, including me, started taking digital photos that the Red Sox or Patriots got any good? Or that Tom Brady was raised on the edge of Silicon Valley? “Capricorn Two”, shot with real film, will expose all of this.

 

 

Date with My Camera

It’s another rockin’ Saturday night here in Pacifica. The wifey is passed out, and I’ve decided to go out with my camera. Kind of our first date, as I’ve given myself an assignment to shoot the pacifica pier at night. I dress warm as it’s summer here, and head out for the pier. I start to feel those nerves creep up on me. What if I don’t see anything worthwhile out there, I can’t bare any boring photos, but I need inspiration. Hey there’s a bar, The Driftin. Maybe I’ll stop in for some courage. I sit down, and a weatherbeaten old ship captain looks at me and my Nikon D80, and says,”now what do you call that thing.?” A few “shots” later everyone’s behind the bar taking turns snapping shots of the ceiling. No one asked me name, they just called me the photographer guy. I paid my tab, and headed for the pier with new found confidence.

10pm finds pacifica pier deserted, pretty dark, still and quiet except for the waves crashing on the seawalls. It’s cold, wet, and a little spooky, but I start pointing the camera and finding a few sights you don’t see by day. I’m soon lost in the orange glow of the dim pier lights. Suddenly the creative juices are flowing, and I’m capturing all sorts of great imagery.

The next morning I’m worried that what I’ve shot is like a bad song written after too many drinks the night before. Will there be a second date…………….?