(new year's res) Roll of Film #3

In a burst of fruition and serendipity, I happened to actually read one of the dozens of promotional emails that crowds my inbox every hour and learned that the Lomography store was giving away a free roll of film during a "Photo Week" (or something like that, I didn't read the email that well) in August. So I scooted my way down to the store and picked up a roll of their own brand of film, Lomo Color Negative. I shot on my La Sardina wide angle camera over the next few months - my journeys took me all over Manhattan and up to Portland, Maine for a most lovely bachelorette weekend, and I made sure to snap at least of couple of pics every few days. The results are stunning - the colors are vibrant and saturated, and while the few pictures I took at dusk did not come out at all, hazy, overcast days were no problem. For being a cheap and plastic camera, the La Sardina takes some fun and dreamy photos. It's not as "gimmicky" as some of the other Lomo cameras I have (the Diana camera is good but a little too retro and blurry for my taste and the FishEye is frankly annoying) and the pictures tend to be much richer than anything I can natively take on my iPhone. I'm taking this camera and a handful of film to Europe and I can't wait to see what images I get!

Film: Lomogropahy 400 Color Print Film - ISO 400
Camera: La Sardinia 35mm
Photo locations: Midtown Manhattan, Portland Head Light (Portland, ME), Central Park

(new year's res) Roll of Film #2

Even though I try my hardest not to keep too much unnecessary "stuff" around the apartment (small-space living ftw!), I have been slowly collecting film cameras over the years. The most recent edition (given to me for my birthday by my most lovely fiancé) is a Lomography La Sardinia, a wide-angle 35mm no-frills camera. I loaded it up with a roll of film as soon as I took it out of the box but as it is wont to do, life got in the way and it took me a few months to shoot the entire roll. Nevertheless, I'm pretty happy with the new camera. It didn't handle shadows very well and a few pictures I took around dusk were so grainy and distorted that the subjects are barely identifiable, but shooting in bright daylight produced some vibrant colors and even few fun light leaks. I'd been toying with the idea of bringing a film camera on our upcoming honeymoon (does one person really need to bring three cameras on vacation?) and based on this first roll, I think I'm going to do it.

Film: FujiColor - ISO 400
Camera: La Sardinia 35mm
Photo locations: Central Park, Jones Beach, Coney Island, Astoria Park

(new year's res) Roll of Film #1

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to take at least four rolls of film this year. Since none of my little plastic analogue cameras handle low light very well, I assumed I'd have to wait until sometime in the spring to start taking these photos - but a few weeks ago we here in the northeast were surprised with a bright, sunny, mid-50's temps weekday afternoon (thanks, global warming?). I also serendipitously had the entire afternoon off with nothing to do except run some errands along 5th ave. and slowly make my way through the park and to the upper west side for an evening performance. Warm temps, bright skies, and a casual urban stroll? That, my friends, is a recipe for a photo walk if I ever saw one. So without hesitation I loaded up my Diana Mini and set out to see my city through a tiny, slightly fuzzy, toy camera lens.

Film: FujiColor - ISO 100

Camera: Diana Mini 35mm

Photo locations: Bryant Park, 5th Avenue (for NYPL, Rockefeller Center), Central Park, Lincoln Center

Playa del Carmen on film

Sometime in mid-April and fed up with the never-ending winter that encased all of New York City for months on end, J and I decided to (temporarily) rectify the problem. We cashed in a ton of points and spent the week at the über-luxurious Paradisius Playa del Carmen La Perla, where we pretty much did nothing but lay in a thatched-roof Bali bed for hour on end, punctuated only by a dip in the pool or a plate of nachos. 

One afternoon, however, we decided to get off our butts and head in to town. Since we were told it was a 30 minute walk and it was approximately 115 degrees out, we had the hotel call a taxi - a wise choice considering the heat and the possibly not-so-safe trek we would have had to make along sparse Mexican roads, but also a not-worth-it choice because the round-trip in a cab came to about $30 for what amounted to two 10-minute drives. But whatever, when in Rome, right?

The town was dusty and touristy. Vendors hawked every tchotchke imaginable, and though brightly colored "authentic" Mexican goods lined 5th Avenue (the main street), the chain restaurants, jewelry stores, and two shopping malls made clear that it was quite obviously a cruise ship port city. Nevertheless, we walked from one end to the other and back again (about 2 miles round trip), stocked up on the requisite magnet and keychain, and enjoyed the carless and colorful street.

I also took a ton of pictures. I'd intentionally left my DSLR at home for this trip (which turned out to be the right choice), but I did bring my Diana Mini, my new(ish) 35mm plastic-body toy camera. There weren't a ton of opportunities to use it while wandering around the resort, but downtown Playa del Carmen proved to be the perfect place to take it out for a walk.

This was my third roll of film with this camera (see the first one here) and easily my favorite. The pictures have a rich and creamy quality to them, and though I had some resolution issues scanning them into my computer, in person they are quite vivid and noiseless. There's also that magic of snapping a photo and having no idea if it'll come out or not. I made the bold choice to not use my iPhone once while walking around the town - so if something had gone wrong with the loading or the processing, I'd have no pictures from that day. Granted, nothing too monumental took place that day - we ambled around a tourist trap that looked like every other Caribbean town I'd ever been to. But still, I took a chance. I obviously will not be retiring either my iPhone or my DSLR, but I'll have a bit more confidence from now on to maybe leave those other cameras back in my bag in the spirit of the photographic unknown.

These photos were shot on a Lomography Diana Mini Camera with Photo Porst Chrome X (100) film. The negatives were processed at one location (let's call it Wrong-Aid) and developed at the Lomography Lab when I realized that the first place couldn't deal with the alternative square sizing of the pictures.