by beth on February 25, 2010
If you ever stop by my house and see me walking around in sunglasses, it’s not because I had a rough night. It’s because Little J has discovered photography. While cleaning out our home office during the blizzard, we found an older digital camera and decided to give it to her to use. She immediately started running around the house taking pictures of anything she could find including her toys and Sierra. I could sense her frustration was building until she finally started stomping her feet and ran upstairs. Upon investigation, we discovered the problem was that she couldn’t hold the camera still so everything was coming out blurry.
Enter the tripod. I have a Flip camera with a small table-top tripod, so I attached that to the camera and off she went again. This time she would look at the screen after taking a picture, smile and announce “that’s a good one.” So while I applaud her creative choices in subjects and angles, I’m not a total fan of her work.
She has basically become my very own personal paparazzi. Let’s just say it’s a really good thing the pictures are digital and can be deleted, because some of them would downright scare the poor individual developing the film. I apparently need to teach her more about hair and make-up specifically that Mommy requires both of these things to be complete before anyone should even consider taking my picture. She is notorious for catching me when I first wake up and come down the stairs in the morning. Can you say bed head?I turn a corner, FLASH, there she is. She is especially fond of the surprise attack.
While I don’t want to stifle her creativity, I fear for the career path she is on if we don’t provide some limits. So consider this your fair warning, if you see Little J and her trusty camera know anything is fair game with her.
by beth on February 10, 2010
It’s no secret that I love food and am trying to improve at my photography skills. My friend Jessica kindly has offered to help me out on the photography front. We met at Moxie a few weeks ago to have lunch and to practice taking pictures of food. The lunch was good, the company was great and actually my photos didn’t come out half bad.
I started with the bake potato soup:
Main course was a grilled cheese with bacon:
Dessert was chocolate cake with strawberry butter cream icing:
And after:
I learned about the Macro setting on my camera which I had used before, but had no idea what it was called or its purpose. You can see the entire set of my photos here.
by beth on January 20, 2010
I have distinct memories as a kid of taking pictures with a Polaroid instant camera. Needless to say, this was back in the days of all film cameras, absolutely no digital. Polaroid was as close as we could come to the instant gratification that you get with digital photography today. I remember taking the picture, pulling the film out of the camera and everyone huddling around to watch it develop in front of our eyes. You were the lucky if you were the one that got to hold it and shake it as it developed.
Fast forward more years that I care to discuss and I have been bitten by the Polaroid bug again. We were at a Frederick Tweetup and @jesshibb pulled out the coolest looking camera I had seen in a long time. It was her Polaroid Mio. She took a picture of the group and the film popped up from the top of the camera. I was instantly brought back to my childhood as we all huddled around to watch it develop. I was hooked.
The next time I talked to my Mom, I asked if there was any chance our Polaroid camera was still kicking around the house. Of course, the original camera is long gone, sold at a yard sale or given to Goodwill thinking no one would want that old thing any more. Yeah, it probably left the house the same day my old Atari and Commodore 64 did too, but that’s for another discussion.
I needed to know more so I went directly to my source, Jessica. She gave me all the facts I needed to know and pointed me in the direction of some good resources and online stores. I put a Mio on my birthday list and I waited… My birthday rolled around and my wonderful hubby got me a Polaroid Mio camera that I coveted so much.
The day it was dropped on my doorstep, I immediately opened it, added batteries and the film, and started to look around to see what was worthy of my first picture. Of course, Little J was happy to model for me. The best part was the look on her face when the picture popped out of the top of the camera. She ran over to see, I gave it to her to hold while it developed and she was fascinated. Film is a foreign concept to her so this “magical” instant film really interested her.
So things have come full circle in my life, I was fascinated with Polaroids as a kid, was thankfully reintroduced to them as an adult and am now able to share it with my daughter and hopefully create a new generation that won’t allow this medium die. By the way, I must tell you that Little J likes to let me know when I should use the digital camera and when I should use the Mio. Smart kid.
I have a lot to learn about photography and especially Polaroid so if you have hints for me please share as I try to improve my skills.
PS: I know, I’m lame that I don’t have a picture with this post. My scanner isn’t working to scan any Polaroids.
