My Life in Photos: Copiapoa Hypogaea

     Two of my biggest passions combined into one image!  The camera that got me started down the path of toy/junkstore photography is the camera that got thousands of people started: The Holga.  I know that many "real" photographers scoff at anything coming from the Lomography folks, but I have this to say:  Lomography makes medium format cameras that are quite affordable and versatile when compared to professional models.  Yes, they are overpriced considering that they are nearly 100% plastic and break fairly easily, but the fact that a person who wants to start taking medium format photos is able to do that for about $50 is pretty remarkable.  A great thing, I would say.  What's more, Lomography is always coming out with new products and accessories.  I have talked about my love for the Holga macro lenses in this post, but here it is again!  Oh, I spent so much time defending Lomography that I forgot to highlight my second passion, which I mentioned in the first sentence:  Plants!  Flora!  Vegetables, if I am to give a shout-out to Carl Linnaeus!  My apartment is absolutely full of houseplants picked up here and there, purchased at Volunteer Park Conservatory sales, rescued from various places.  I love them and spend a lot of time on them, and that includes my time behind a camera.
     Seen here is the Copiapoa Hypogaea, which is a cactus I picked up at a plant sale at Volunteer Park.  It is light brown with sparse, shiny, black spines and a white cottony tuft around the middle.  Mine has bloomed several times, with a flower that looks similar to a waxy dandelion, and when the flower dies it leaves a seedpod which eventually bursts open like this one.

Copiapoa Hypogaea Seeds
Taken with Holga 120 CFN on Kodak Portra 400 NC

My Life in Photos: RIP Espresso Vivace

    Espresso Vivace is still fully operational, and their coffee is just as good as always - the best in Seattle in my opinion.  The best anywhere, really.  They started out as a coffee stall on Broadway, but as they grew in popularity they moved into a beautiful, historic brick building a few blocks away.  This building was razed in order to make way for the new light rail tunnel station, which I approve of, but I do wish the Vivace bricks didn't have to come down.  I spent countless hours studying Arabic in that cafe, and I genuinely miss it.  I did take several pictures of the building in various stages of demolition, and I knew that the building would be missed.
     As for the photo itself, this was taken using the redscale technique.  Redscale is the term used for shooting on the back of color film.  Making redscale film is really easy - you unspool the film in a darkroom or a changing bag, cut it off a few inches from the canister, flip it upside down, and tape it back onto the remaining film stub.  Rewind the film (leaving the small tail, of course, to load into your camera) and the rest is business as usual.  Need a more scientific explanation?  The emulsion layer that is sensitive to red light is on the bottom of the emulsion material, with the blue layer on top of it and a filter in between to block blue light from exposing the red layer, as the red layer is also sensitive to blue light.  When you shoot on the back of the film, the red layer is exposed, but the blue layer underneath remains unexposed due to the filter layer between red and blue. How about a non-scientific explanation?  When you shoot on this film, it magically turns everything to shades of red, purple, yellow, and orange.  In my 3rd grade art class, we were told that these were called "warm colors." I guess 3rd grade art lessons do help you in your adult life.

Espresso Vivace Remnants
Taken with Holga 35BC on the back of C-41 film

My Life in Photos: Lake Tahoe

     One of the best things about going on trips is getting to discover new things to take photos of.  I am always noticing things that I find interesting because nobody is noticing them.  Maybe I get excited because I see a type of forest or terrain that I'm not used to.  Maybe I get excited about the wording on a public notice or storefront.  Or maybe I'm just having fun wandering around by myself in a place I don't live with a camera.
     Lake Tahoe is not a place that was on my list of places to visit.  Every time I have money to travel I leave the country.  Lake Tahoe is, however, a big wedding destination as well as a destination for other things (skiing, mountain biking, hiking, gambling) and it was a wedding that brought me there a few summers ago.  After the crowds and fancy clothing came to an end I was able to walk around unsupervised with another camera from the shelves: the Argus Argoflex.  This is a simple, cheap TLR that I picked up for next to nothing at a thrift store, cleaned up, fixed the few small problems with it, and I'm pretty satisfied with how it works.
     Like I mentioned above, I get excited about forests when they're different from the Douglas Fir forest we have up here in the Seattle area.  Pine forests?  I'm all over it.  Sunny, blue sky?  Better get some photos of that too (sorry, Seattle friends, for making the overused "Seattle is rainy" joke).

Lake Tahoe Beach
Taken with Argus Argoflex on Kodak Portra 400NC

     And here's a bonus photo of some weird mini aqueduct that empties onto the beach:

In Case You Want to Pan for Gold
Taken with Argus Argoflex on Kodak Portra 400NC

My Life in Photos: Cascade Mystery Warehouse

     Nobody who lives in Seattle uses the name Cascade for the Cascade neighborhood.  In fact, I don't think many people even know that it's the official name of what we fold into the South Lake Union moniker.  Either way, Cascade is a strange place to me.  There is a mixture of high-end condominiums, upscale hotels, expensive boutiques, corporate complexes, warehouses, factories, and one of the only hardware stores in the downtown corridor.  For the most part, these different types of edifices are grouped together, but there are a couple buildings that look really out of place in this neighborhood.  I am always looking at one in particular and wondering what could possibly be inside.  Surrounded by large office buildings and Seattle's oldest public park, its blue sheet metal siding and disheveled concrete slab bring to mind safe houses in mob movies.  I will probably never know what's actually in there.

Mystery Warehouse
Taken with Golden Half on expired Kodak Gold 200

My Life in Photos: Palatul Parlamentului

     The Romanian Palace of the Parliament is an impressive building, to say the least.  It is the largest civilian administrative building in the world, the most expensive building in the world, and the heaviest building in the world.  On top of that, there is a pretty insane story about how it was built.  It is the main reason Bucharest has such a high population of stray dogs (who terrified me).  The Palatul Parlamentului was conceived by the late Nicolae Ceauşescu and had been started before his death.  It has some pretty interesting features designed to prevent assassinations, including a closed off ventilation system designed to keep outside air, and poisonous gases, out.  His paranoia didn't save him in the end, and he left his people with all the materials and a partially built building when he died.  They decided to finish it because it was less expensive than demolition and removal of the debris, but they are still quite bitter about this.
     It is a beautiful building, really, and its enormity is pretty amazing.  Here's a corner.  That's all I could fit in the frame...

Palatul Parlamentului
Taken with Mamiya/Sekor 500TL on Kodak TMAX 400

My Life in Photos: Bosphorus Ferry

     As one of the most profound times of my youngish life, my solo backpacking trip to Central Europe will show up several times in these posts.  Long story short, I was inspired by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, one of my favorite novelists, to visit Istanbul.  Actually the exact destination I obsessed over for a few years prior to embarking on this adventure was Edirne, a smaller city right near the border to Bulgaria.  But most of my Turkey time was spent in the sprawling, historical, and powerfully beautiful Istanbul.
     Here is a photo of one of Istanbul's many prized features: the Bosphorus.  Forming part of the border between Europe and Asia, this narrow strait cuts through the middle of Istanbul and is an important thoroughfare for commercial, military, and private boats and ships from all over the world.  Growing up on the beaches of Whidbey Island, surrounded by seagulls and ferry boats, I felt right at home here.  If you ever get the chance to go, go!

Europe as seen from the Bosphorus
Taken with Mamiya/Sekor 500TL on Kodak TMAX 400

Oh, hi martı.

My Life in Photos: Bridgetown 2010

   As I break the first blog milestone, 100 page views, I would like to thank you, dear reader, for making it possible.  For my Russian friends, even though I don't actually know you, Спасибо!  For my German buds, danke!  For everybody else, thanks (you all speak English anyway)!  Now my biggest fan and follower thus far has been my girlfriend, naturally.  So as a small homage, here is a photo one of us took with her camera in Portland when we went for a Valentine's Day weekend last year.  I have mentioned how much I love bridges, so here is a part of a bridge you don't often get to see or photograph.  I can't remember which bridge this is, so if anybody knows please send me a message!

Portland Bridge (which one?)
Taken with Mamiya/Sekor 500TL on Kodak TMAX 400

RIP, poor little camera.

My Life in Photos: Aurora Bridge 2005

   Once the most popular bridge in Washington State for jumpers, the Aurora Bridge, which I just learned is actually called the George Washington Memorial Bridge, has been one of my favorite subjects of my photos since I moved to Seattle.  I have always had a fascination with structures built with a complete disregard for aesthetics.  Bridges sometimes fall into this category, as do factory machines and my favorite, temporary construction cranes.  Here is a photo taken with a Kodak Brownie Bullet on film that is now made only by a Croatian company.

Aurora Bridge
Taken with Kodak Brownie Bullet on Efke 127 R100

     The photo lab I use was a bit surprised to see this film the first time I brought it in, but they were able to process it without any issues and were even able to scan it, though they had to scan it on a flatbed, thus the dust.  127 has become one of my favorite formats to shoot in.

My Life in Photos: Rockefeller Center 02/2011

     As I have stated in my introductory paragraphs, I am fully aware that my photos are amateur photos.  I do not delude myself with notions of born talent or "an eye" for this.  I do, however, feel that I am able to take photos that focus on what I focus on.  I will try to explain this as I go.

     For my first post in the "My Life in Photos" series I chose a photo that was taken at the very beginning of a recent trip to NYC.  My goal in photography, as much as this is discouraged in many textbooks, is to capture busy scenes without allowing a human to make their way into the frame.  Of course I like photographing my friends an family as much as anybody else, and I am intrigued by scenes of strangers (What are they thinking?  Where are they coming from?) but I find myself drawn to vantage points that allow me to photograph not the crowds of people, but exactly what has caused all these people to flock to the area.  This will likely be something seen in many of my MLiP selections.

New York City from Rockefeller Center
Taken with a Pentax ME on Fuji Superia X-Tra800

     In this photo, I also inadvertently caught the Slovenian flag and so would like to dedicate this posting to my grandmother Sylvia, who passed away a few months ago after a very hard life moving from a small town in Slovenia to a camp in Germany, on a long trip to Chicago, and finally to sunny Florida.