Autumn Sunrise 2004, from my toy camera set on Flickr
As much as I’ve been playing around with toy cameras lately, I’m surprised to notice that I hadn’t uploaded a bunch of digital toy camera images to my Flickr stream. That has now been remedied. They were all taken a few years ago, with either a Vivitar or JamCam. Obviously, the quality is low, low, low. I really like how some of them turned out, though.
Rising Sun on Fog and Frost, Autumn 2004
I woke up this morning to a thin layer of frost on my car’s windows. It was too thick to wipe away with a towel, but not really so thick as to need scraping. It was frost, though, and that’s all that matters.
Hallelujah!
As threatened. Howsomever, no Polaroids, because it’s just too dark today to take them.
Ken was headless when I found him. Barbie’s legs were disembodied, too. The legs must have belonged to my old landlord’s daughter, because I found them lying in the gravel lane outside my house. They have teeth marks in them, and I’m not sure whether they’re from a small child or a dog.
Foo Dog and Duck
The concrete foo dog is part of a pair that my mom had. She gave me one, and Ms. Lea has its twin. The duck has starred in other photos of mine. It used to belong to a family friend. She passed it on to me when I fell in love with it. Both of them spent the last year indoors, where their lovely mossy patina deteriorated, so I set them out on the patio to regain a little of their former color.
I’ve been going through the stash of old Polaroids I took when I was working at the art museum. I’ve only got a few left, so it was a nice surprise to find that I actually have a (sort of) working Polaroid Land Camera (and a box of film). I had no idea! Ms. Lea confirmed that she found it at a yard sale a few years. They couldn’t get it to work, so she passed it on to me. The color is a bit green (heavily corrected in the above photo), and the image is blurry (after Photoshopping, I think the problem is that the shutter is godawful slow, so I’ll need to use a tripod). I think it will do just fine for what I need, though, because I’m going to alter the photos, anyway.
So, yay! I now have another toy to play with.
While cleaning out closets last week, I also found my stash of Naked Barbies. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
(I didn’t like how pristine the real border is, so I swapped it for a dirty, old, taped up faux border.)
Carriage House with Pear Tree in Spring (take three)
I wasn’t quite happy with the way the earlier one turned out. I was working from an image that was in my Flickr stream, which means it was already cropped and minimally processed. I went back and dug out my back-ups from that time period, and had another try using the raw image.
I was trying to get the pinky look of faded old low-fi photos. I also wanted to try using radial blurring to make it look toy-like. It’s not quite there, but it was a good learning experience.
Sassafras Tree
Flame-leaf Sumac Tree
The line of trees at the back of the field behind my apartment is made up mostly of sassafras and black walnuts what I thought were black walnut, but are actually flame-leaf sumac (Rhus lanceolata). I love the explosion of scarlet against the grey and green of the sky and grass.
Fox Grape Leaf
Sumac Leaf
Sassafras Leaf
It’s been drizzling all day. When I walked the dog after work, I noticed that the leaves in the back field were beaded up with rain drops, so I went back inside to grab my camera.’
Flame-leaf sumac (Rhus lanceolata) (raw from camera)
I love the way this photo turned out, just straight from the camera. It could have been centered a little better, but the colors are super saturated. When I’ve mentioned that taking photos on overcast days has certain benefits, this is what I’m talking about.
Of course, that didn’t stop me from tinkering around with it.
Carriage House and Pear Tree in Spring
It’s been gross and blustery and cold here the past few days, so I thought a little springtime imagery would be nice.
To add to an otherwise craptacular week (yes, the city inspectors did finally show up yesterday afternoon), I overslept this morning. I think the wind must have made the power flicker, because when I finally woke up at 5:30, my clock was flashing. Yikes! I threw on some clothes and started to take the dog out, when I noticed that there was a strange guy lying on the steps to the upstairs apartments. Double yikes!
I haven’t a clue who he was. He may have belonged to the stompy girls, but I decided I’d better take the dog out back, instead. When we came back inside, I heard some fumbling around in the stairwell and assumed it was Mr. Sleepyhead leaving. I called work to let my boss know I’d be late, then took a shower and finished getting ready. When I finally left, I found the guy passed out in front of my door. I decided that no matter who he was, he didn’t belong there, so I called the police.
It wasn’t even so much that I was creeped out by his presence, but if he did belong to the stompy girls, and was kicked out last night for some reason, then he had no business sticking around. Rather than take a chance that he was intent on causing trouble for them, I thought it would be better to let the cops handle it.
And then, wouldn’t you know, as the cops pulled up, the guy left. They said they saw him leaving our front door and getting into a car that had pulled up.
It must be Random Wacky People Week[tm] in my building!
Someone deboned my cat.
red paper boat 