Shasta Polaroids

26 May 2009

A couple of weeks ago I picked up an old Polaroid Sun 660 from a guy on Craigslist.  It was a mere $20, but since Polaroid have stopped production the film is rather more expensive; about $1.50 to $2 a pop depending on expiry date.

A group of us went house boating on Lake Shasta last weekend.  We took a tonne of polaroids which Tessa was kind enough to scan.

The camera rocks.  It’s big and chunky, and takes a good 20s to charge up the flash, but the noise it makes when you take a photo, and the retro-quality of the prints are awesome.

Checkmate

18 May 2009

I’m really pleased with the way this photo turned out. It was taken for the Assignment 52 Flickr Group and I’d been planning it in my head for a few days.

I’m not a big chess player by any means, but I wanted an authentic scene for this shot, so I looked-up some famous matches on Google. I found The Game of the Century, where 13-year old Bobby Fischer beat a renowned chess master.  This photo replicates the last move in that match.

Tessa turned out to be a great hand model :)

Bring Your Own Big Wheel

13 April 2009

This weekend was the 9th annual Bring Your Own Big Wheel event on Vermont Street here in San Francisco.  I’ve never been before, but by all accounts this year was much bigger than the previous years.

I felt a little jealous just watching from the sidelines, but at least I managed to get a few photos.  Maybe next year :)

Photographic Critique

11 March 2009

I’ve been reading a lot about photography recently, both books and blogs.  One of the blogs I’m really into is by Atlanta based photographer Zack Arias.  He has started posting video critiques of aspiring photographers’ portfolio sites.  Its really interesting to watch and hear what a professional looks for and the details they notice.

Over to Flickr

1 February 2008

I’ve finally decided to start using a photo hosting service, instead of using my own site. I do prefer the idea of keeping all my photos here, but in recent months I haven’t been able to find the time to build the features I want, such as tagging, comments, geo-coding, and uploading software.

I looked at both Google’s own PicasaWeb and Flickr. While I prefer Picasa for browsing photos I really like the over all aesthetics of Flickr, and the organizational tools. So I went with the latter and have started with my photos from Christmas in England.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2069/2235369516_c1ac84474c.jpg?v=0

Yosemite

11 September 2006

/dump/yosemite.jpg

I’ve been working through my photo backlog and have got to our weekend camping and walking in Yosemite back in June. I think Glen, in particular, has very fond memories of climbing the 750 metres to the top of Yosemite Falls.

Because of the shear scale of the scenery, a lot of the detail is lost in the small photos :(