New Camera Exploits
December 27, 2008
So, I got a new camera! Huge YAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Beebus
David was cool enough to let me (aka MAKE me) open it Christmas Eve Eve. The next day, we traveled to Wichita to meet with his family. Of course, I had to start playing with it!
On Da Ro-ad to Ta-Town
Excuse the ree-ree pictures. Like I said, I was playing.
Switching around the aperture!
DavIto the Bad Azzzz
Car.
I didn’t take pictures in Wichita since I knew his fam wasn’t too big into picture-taking. Besides, I knew I’d have plenty of time for pics Christmas Day with my fam. Speaking of which…
Mom and Seestar
They will both hate me if they find out I posted that one. Oh well. Onward and downward?
Autumn--Regifting herself
Don't Look!
Peekaboo!
Dancing with Grapes
Love this one...
Hi David! Going crazy yet?
Mom and Dad
The Dudes: David, John, Daddy-O (PoPo)
Hi Princess.
Goodbye Princess.
I steal your dress.
New Princess.
Christmas 2008 was certainly a success. Happy Holidays, Everyone!
Put Your Flowers in My…”Flower”…Vase?
December 17, 2008
Cool shelving on the wall. Cool…vase? Yeah…
| defact studio and the plug at the white hotel belgium — 
this past weekend close to 70 designers transformed over 40 rooms of the white hotel in belgium, brussels,
|
Don’t ever deflower my flower. Ohhh, the puns! The puns!
Screw You, Polaroid!
December 9, 2008
You know what? I’m pissed. Why? They’re getting rid of Polaroid instant film!
Sarah and I talked about what office toys we’d like to have to play with on our desks. There are magnets, stress balls and all sorts of who-dilly-thingies out there to buy, so she asked me what I’d want on my desk.
What did I want? A Polaroid instant film camera. Sonofabetch.
By Jacque Wilson
CNN
(CNN) — Every day for a year, Tacey Willis looked for an eye-catching photo subject — a ballerina, a rocker dude in a bookstore or three older ladies from the Red Hat Society. She allowed herself one shot each day, with only one piece of instant film.
Tacey Willis’ “Day By Day Polaroid” project contains 365 photos, movies, songs and quotes.
But halfway through that year, Willis abruptly took the money she’d saved for a down payment on a car and bought every piece of Polaroid film she could find. Why? Because the Polaroid Corp. announced it would stop making instant film. And without it her project, “Day by Day Polaroid,” would never be complete.
Sixty years after Polaroid introduced its first instant camera, the company’s iconic film is disappearing from stores.
Although Polaroid says the film should be available into 2009, this is the final month of its last production year.
Eclipsed by digital photography, Polaroid’s white-bordered prints — and the anticipation they created as their ghostly images gradually came into view — will soon be things of the past. See some Polaroid photos from our iReporters »
From David Hockney’s famous Polaroid art compositions, to the line, “Shake it like a Polaroid picture” from OutKast’s hit “Hey Ya!”, Polaroid instant film has embedded itself in popular culture.
The public’s reaction to Polaroid’s announcement reflects that. Blogs lament the loss. Polaroid-fan groups have formed on Facebook. On Amazon.com, a four-pack of 10 exposures is selling for $64 — nearly $1.60 per photo.
The announcement hit Willis, an artist in Los Angeles, California, especially hard. She began her “Day by Day Polaroid” project in June 2007 and still had four months to finish. “I really freaked out when they came out with the memo,” she said.
Her project — a book manuscript waiting for a publisher — contains 365 photos accompanied by related songs, movies and quotations. iReport.com: Learn more about Willis’ project
So why did she choose Polaroid and not some other type of photo? Willis is simply in love with that little white rectangle.
“It always turns out completely different than it looks in the viewpoint,” she said. “At first I felt frustrated. But then, as an artist, it made it more fun. You had to let it go. I like sitting down with each picture. It’s like a baby. You put so much art and soul into it.”
Willis isn’t alone in her devotion. Minneapolis, Minnesota, graphic designer Sean Tubridy founded SavePolaroid.com with some friends he met through a Polaroid Flickr group. The Web site’s mission: to persuade another company to produce the instant film.
“For me, watching a Polaroid picture develop is like watching a memory form right before your eyes,” Tubridy wrote on his Web site.
“With instant film, you don’t get to make the choice of whether or not a picture is ‘good enough’ to make a print. You can’t just hit delete because someone was making a weird face, or the framing wasn’t quite right or in some way the image doesn’t live up to the unattainable idea of perfection…
“It’s life, and chances are, we’ll find it in a box years later and be thankful that we have it — dirty shorts, nervous smile and all.”
SavePolaroid.com has about 4,000 members — 573 of whom uploaded stories on why they think Polaroid instant film is worth keeping.
In a statement, Polaroid acknowledges its film’s “loyal and passionate following,” but says the company is looking to the future. Sales of all film types have plummeted this decade as digital photography became the norm.
Tubridy agrees that digital photography has its advantages, but he believes that instant film, and its 20th-century technology, still has a purpose.
“The biggest misconception is that digital is a perfect replacement for [instant film],” he said. “I don’t use Polaroids to replace [digital], to take to parties and events. That’s not really practical and I don’t think anyone would argue that. It’s just something special at times when you want something different.”
For others, it’s more about nostalgia and their Polaroid-snapshot memories, which make it harder to let go of their Instamatic past.
Sean Burns, of Columbia City, Oregon, fondly remembers the cross-country trips his family took every summer for more than 20 years. They traveled thousands of miles, covering practically every road west of the Mississippi, and almost every moment is documented on Polaroid film.
“Dad thought Polaroid was the greatest invention ever conceived and stubbornly remains loyal to the product to this day,” Burns wrote on iReport.com. His father, Otis Burns, received his first Polaroid camera in elementary school in the 1940s.
“He was so intrigued and fascinated by the instant developed pictures that he became almost religiously devoted to Polaroid and refused to accept any other form of film,” Burns said. iReport.com: Watch Burn’s dad use his Polaroid camera
Otis Burns still takes the same camera on his road trips today. At every motel where he spends the night, he takes a photo of the view from the room — whether it’s a pastoral landscape, a brick wall or the parking lot. And on the back of each photo he writes the details of the setting: the room number, the town and the date.
“Sometimes magic seems to happen and a deceptively simple picture outside a Motel 6 can say a thousand words,” Sean Burns said of his father’s collection. “Polaroid photos take [only] a minute to develop, but sometimes art takes decades.”
Some of the most memorable pictures I’ve taken and had taken of me were with those cameras. Those pictures always seemed so special to me because I always remembered shaking the film, sitting there in anticipation waiting for the film to develop. In that instance, you were able to save a moment in time and see it reappear before your eyes.
Ehhh, I guess Polaroid isn’t making a mistake. You know it will conveniently reemerge where all old “cool” cameras come back from the grave and Polaroid will make a ton more money. Thank you, Urban Outfitters!
Nine Inch Hairsprayed Bangs?
December 8, 2008
I’m ripping music to my computer/Sansa clip player thingy, and my computer is vibrating and buzzing.
Also, I’m listening to Shiny Toy Guns new album, Season of Poison, which sounds like…
Good? Bad? I don’t know. I like a couple of songs on there.
More later, dudes.
I’ll Wham! your Ho Ho Ho down your…
December 2, 2008
is the best picture I could take over the past two weeks. Sadness.
Oh well, it’s something, right?
Yay me.Anywho…yep, it’s ANOTHER blog. Why? Because I forgot my password to my other account, and Blogger is taking too long to send the password to my Gmail account. Not kidding.
Have some more pictures…
So it’s about Christmas time, and I’ve decided not to be a poopy pants about the Holidays. Good news, right? Yeah, I’ve never been a huge fan of the Holiday season. I’m not sure if it’s due to the fact that our family doesn’t really celebrate it in huge fashion anymore or if it’s because I’m poor and so is everyone else around me or if it’s because I worked in retail for too long. Any which way, I’ve been turning into a Grinch for the past four years. I’m not sure what the exact plan of action will be to go from “ho-hum”ing to “ho ho ho”ing (other than standing on a street corner–hey yoooo! heh), but I promise to try to be more in the Holiday spirit this year.
2) Send Christmas cards
F for epic Fail!
**Photo may or may not be of actual Friends and Loved Ones**
Mannequin and Pirates
December 2, 2008
Sick.
Well, sorta.
It’s weird having a boss that actually tells you to work from home. Yay for germ-a-phobes! Or is it germ-o-phobes? Germafobes. Jerrmahfohbs.
I’m actually feeling worse now that I came home. Getting the chills and all that good stuff. Blah.
I wish I was able to record my thoughts as they pop into my head. You know like in the movie, What Women Want (which I haven’t really seen except for one scene with Helen Hunt in an office with Mel Gibson). Apparently, he can hear everything she’s thinking, right? You see though, I don’t think my thoughts would always be in complete sentences. Here’s an example of what’s going through my head right now:
KiKi, stop it.
I can’t really think of anything to type or think about.
Cold.
KiKi!
Stop it, KiKi. Don’t even try it.
Well, that was lame and not a good example. (KiKi was trying to eat my computer mouse/computer screen).
Anyway, the point is that I don’t think everyone thinks in sentences. It might be more like in random ideas, words and…notions?
Ahoy, mateys! Come aboard the StArrrrr-ship!
So apparently we have pirates chillin’ ’round Africa. I just read an article on cnn.com with the headline of “No way to stop us, pirate leader says.”
The first thing that popped into my head was…yep, you’d better believe it…”Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us.” If you don’t know the song, then 1) you obviously haven’t seen Mannequin and 2) well, you don’t appreciate bad music from ex-60s and 70s-rockers-turned-We-Built-This-City-and-crapped-out-a-music-video bands.
And we can sail these fleets together, sailing strong forever
Nothing’s gonna stop us now!
And if this world runs out of tankers
Wall Street loses bankers
Nothing’s gonna stop us, nothing’s gonna stop us nowwwww whoahhhhhhh
Yes. I am. A. Dork.
