Results tagged “photography”

Hi, my name is Firda, I’m in my late 30 and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I’m jealous of people younger than me who seem to have everything figured out. Great careers. Jobs that pay well. Making money doing things they love. Actually, I’m not really jealous of the great careers and well-paying jobs. I’m jealous of those who get to make good money doing things they love and get recognized for it. It’s like having it all!

I may not know what I want to be when I grow up, but I know what I want to do. I want to make money taking pretty pictures of trees and making silly creatures out of scrap fabric. It doesn’t even have to be a lot of money. I’m used to being poor. Hell, I always feel out of place in fancy restaurants (though I suspect it’s mostly due to self-worth/self- esteem issues, thanks to the constant put downs while growing up in Indonesia). But it would be nice to make just enough money so we can go on a vacation once a year. We haven’t been on a real vacation since 2007.

Do you have a favourite tree? Do you think that a lot of people have a favourite tree? Do you think people with a favourite tree would hire a photographer to photograph it? I mean, if people are willing to pay photographers to photograph their pets, why won’t they hire one to photograph their favourite trees? I know what you’re thinking. Crazy idea. Ingenious, but crazy, and would require a team of highly-motivated marketers to sell, which I obviously can’t afford. But realistically thinking aside, it is something that I’d like to do. I love trees. I think they’re pretty.

Now the making silly creatures out of scrap fabric part of my dream career. It’s tough because all the good, silly creature ideas are already taken. Maybe I should connect it with the tree-loving side of me so instead of making silly creatures, I make plush trees out of scrap fabric. Hey, that could work! The only thing is, would anyone really buy plush trees? Would you? I bet people would rather buy plush robots than plush trees. I do like plush robots. Maybe make plush trees with a side of robots? Or plush robotic trees? Now I’m getting too crazy.

This past weekend, my friend Kim, who recently started a blog of her own (go check it out!), suggested that I write a children book illustrated with my own photos. I like the idea. I could try to write a children book with characters made from scrap fabric. Wouldn’t that be cute? Maybe I could start with short stories a la My Milk Toof. Maybe? I just like to be creative. Being creative makes me happy. If only I could make good money out of it. Sigh.

By the way, I came up with an excellent moneymaking idea this weekend, which is to sell Stratford soil in a vial that can be used as a pendant to stupid Justin Bieber fans. (If you don’t know it already, Justin Bieber is our town’s export. Sorry about that.) But do I really want to rely my earnings on Justin Bieber’s popularity? No, not really. Especially since I’m really hoping for his popularity to decline very soon.

Did you know that my blog was once named the web’s best home for ideas that never seem to materialize? Fact!

PS. In case you don’t use a feed reader to read blogs, I also have a link blog and a cooking inspiration blog at Tumblr that you might find interesting.

I got a roll of film developed today. I started shooting this roll two years ago and I had been carrying the camera to so many places that when I got the negatives, I had no idea where most of the shots were taken. Now that I’ve scanned a few frames, I know that some come from a fall fair we went to in 2007 and some more from our trip to Winnipeg in February 2008. There are still more to discover.

Scanning this roll of negatives is kind of like going on a time machine and it’s exciting because I have totally forgotten taking some of the shots and the reason why I found something so interesting that I had to capture it on film. It’s too bad that I didn’t start scanning earlier. I really want to check out every single frame, but alas, it’s bedtime already.

Haven’t seen anything interesting on my Facebook homepage lately so I’ll just leave you with a link to fontcapture where you can make a font out of your handwriting for free! It kept me amused for a fraction of the day. It’s sad that I’ve kind of forgotten how to write with my hand. My handwriting doesn’t look like the handwriting I remember anymore. Damn you, Internet!

I’ve been wanting to try developing film with Caffenol-C for awhile (the fact that it’s environmentally-friendly really appeals to me), and last week, I finally did. The first roll I developed turned out to be a dud since it came from a totally experimental pinhole camera. I had no more exposed roll to try to develop so I took Troy and my Holga camera for a walk downtown and shot a roll of Agfa APX 100 film. The result is what you can see above. It’s grainy, streaky, unevenly developed (the last two are largely my fault) but hey, it really works! Next time I’m going to have to try it on a roll of properly exposed film, as in shot with a SLR camera instead of a toy camera. Over- and underexposed negatives just don’t scan very well.

Anyway, if you’re interested in my Caffenol-C recipe, this one’s for you:

• 5 tablespoons of Maxwell House Original Roast instant coffee
• 3 tablespoons of Arm & Hammer’s So Clean Super Washing Soda
• 2 Redoxon Vitamin C Effervescent tablets (I used the lemon-flavoured ones)

Mix with 500ml water, or use two glasses with 250ml of water in each to dissolve the coffee and the washing soda separately. Once the coffee is dissolved, throw in the vitamin C tablets. It will get frothy on top but I’ve found that once you mix it with the washing soda solution, the froth disappears. Develop for 15 minutes, agitate every 60 seconds, and then stop bath and fix as normal. I use tap water for stop bath and Ilford Rapid Fixer for fixing. If you know of a source of sodium thiosulfate (the active ingredient in fixer) that can be found in supermarkets, please do let me know! I’m almost out of fixer.

Another green b&w film developing solution I’d like to try is the one with mint tea and baking soda. It’s supposed to work and smell better than Caffenol. People are complaining about how the Caffenol-C solution smells like death. It’s actually not that bad. It smells like a tuna sandwich!

Another day, another late post. If I’d written something earlier, the post would probably end up being an angsty one since I woke up feeling angry for some reasons even though I didn’t have a nightmare last night. At least I don’t think I did. Right now I’m just too tired to be angry. Heh.

So, I’ve been kind of saving up some money for a couple of months and right about now I have enough to buy another entry level digital SLR camera, except I don’t really want another entry level camera. I want at least a semi-pro model like the new Canon EOS 7D that has just been released yesterday, that I should be able to afford in another couple of months. The thing is, I also want to save up for a big(gish) trip next year. I don’t know which one I want more. What a dilemma. I guess I’ll decide in a couple of months.

You might have heard about the earthquake in Indonesia. You’d think that after the whole series of disasters happening there, I’d get used to it and wouldn’t feel anything. Not so. It makes me feel bad every time. Indonesia could really use a break.

Anyway, here’s some interesting links pilfered from my Facebook homepage to entertain you:

• Squirrel Stuck in Yogurt Cup (YouTube)

• iGun Traffic Rampage (YouTube)

• Trailer for The Men Who Stare At Goats, a movie starring George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, and Kevin Spacey (Apple)

• We’re all mutants, say scientists (BBC News)

• Listen to I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon - Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Tumblr)

Who needs to scour the Web for interesting stuff when you have my Facebook friends.

I was only planning to take a week off of blogging but then one week turned into two weeks and two weeks turned into one month. Oopsie! The plan is to start blogging five days a week again today. Of course I had to wait until shortly before bedtime to write something because, as you know, I’m the Queen of Procrastination.

I’m doing the peepee dance as I type and, well, it’s four minutes to bedtime so sadly this post is not going to be a long one. But I guess I should at least tell you something about the picture above. It was taken this past weekend when we went yurting at the Silent Lake Provincial Park. The weather was crappy for the whole weekend. It rained a lot. That’s why I felt the need to photoshop in the big cloud sky into the picture. The big cloud sky came from the weekend before and was shot while we were in Turkey Point by the Lake Erie.

Anyway, Troy doesn’t like me doing that kind manipulation. He calls it cheating. I call it taking advantage of Photoshop because isn’t it what Photoshop is for?

So I was in a good mood last night after playing three rounds of cribbage with Troy before bed and I didn’t even mind the fact that he kicked my ass. But then I made the mistake of checking Facebook before shutting down the computer and read about the bombings in my hometown Jakarta. And there went my good mood, down the frickin’ proverbial drain. Frick!

Why can’t people just stick to playing Demolition City whenever they feel like fooling around with explosives instead of bombing real buildings and hurt real people?

It’s kind of hard to find anything funny after such a downer but look at this handy guide to the 101 Muppets of Sesame Street! It’s bound to make you smile! Nevermind that Elmo is pictured in the front row (because apparently old school Muppet fans such as Troy really dislike Elmo). I think Barkley is my favourite Muppet because he’s a dog and he surprisingly acts like a dog! Yes, I’m no fun.

Oh, and this Hallmark publication from 1976 called Please Don’t Promise Me Forever made me LOL with the brilliant pairings of corny pictures and equally corny words. The book has handwritten annotations by its previous owner on some pages. It’ll make you wonder about the kind of relationship they had.

And to round this post up, here’s another fake Polaroid maker called Rollip. Unlike Poladroid, Rollip is completely web-based and has more film effects to choose from. Which reminds me, I need to clean up my Polaroid SX-70 camera. The last time I shot with it, the film got stuck in the roller and the film paste leaked and was sticking all over the place. Sure the real thing is cooler but it can get messy sometimes!

Have a good weekend and see you on Monday!

It’s 18 minutes to midnight and I still don’t know what to blog about. Ha! Oh, only 9 more days to go before the NaBloPoMo is over and then my beloved readers won’t have to read my crap on a daily basis anymore. Just bear with me!

So. Um. I’ve been experimenting with post processing boring photos by adding texture layers in Photoshop. I’m kind of pleased with the results. It makes the boring photos a little less boring. I don’t really follow any tutorials. I just do what I think would work. Though I must admit that some of the pictures are kind of texture overkill. Maybe I should stick to subtle textures. Anyway, this thing is so addictive that I just can’t stop! But I’m sure I’ll get tired of it soon. If you’re also following my Flickr photostream, this is just another thing that you have to bear with me.

In case you’re not following my Flickr photostream, check out this set to see what I’m talking. My favourite of the bunch is this photo. I took it in a place in Vancouver Island called Tofino last year during our two-week trip out West. It’s such a beautiful place. I wish we had stayed there longer but we only got to spend two nights and even then the weather was crappy most of the time. Maybe we’ll go back there again next year. You’ll never know! This time last year, I didn’t know that we’d end up buying a house the next year. Life is always full of surprises!

Guess what we ended up NOT doing this weekend? Everything mentioned in the previous post, except for visiting Troy’s grandma. That one we did. And oh what a journey it was. Mother Nature suddenly decided that it was the perfect time for a snowsquall so while we were driving down to the nursing home, snow started falling like crazy and soon, voila! It was instant winter wonderland. We got to the nursing home late as everyone had to drive slow on the highways due to the crappy weather but grandma seemed happy to see us so, yeah, mission accomplished.

When we got back home this afternoon, Troy had to shovel the snow from the sidewalk in front of our house and our driveway. Mind you, we happen to live in an area that gets a lot of snow in the winter. It’s not officially winter yet but if you look outside our window, it definitely looks like winter. Tonnes of snow out there. Somebody will have to shovel the snow tomorrow morning.

Living in a snowdumped area, it’s likely that we’re going to be stuck inside a lot this winter. I’ve come up with some photography projects to do to kill the time and to keep me sane. Doing some still life TTV shots is one. I’ve ordered a cheap-ass macro filter set from eBay just for this purpose. I also have a bunch of found negatives and slides to scan. Peeking at the lives of some strangers from the bygone eras through the images is rather fascinating. I’m also trying to come up with a project to do with my last pack of Polaroid 600 film. As you may know, Polaroid has stopped the production of instant films, which is a shame. I’m sure I’ll come up with something when I’m bored enough and when I do, I’ll let you know.

And now, it’s time for me to sleep. We’re supposed to be getting 15-25 cm. of snow overnight. Oh joy!

This past Sunday we went for a walk downtown while waiting for the rolls of film we dropped off at the photo lab to get developed. I noticed that most restaurants are closed on Sundays. I also noticed that there are so many things to photograph in downtown Stratford, yet I keep stalling from doing just that because I’m worried that once I’ve photographed everything there is to photograph in this town, I would have the urge to move somewhere else, and we can’t have that. Still, I keep telling myself that one of these days, I’m going to go for a walk around the downtown area and take a bunch of pictures with the Holga. Why the Holga, you ask? No reasons. I just haven’t used it much lately. And I really should use it more often, especially now that I know the local photo lab does same-day developing of medium format colour film. Back in Waterloo, it would take 24 hours and would cost more too!

The longer I live in this town, the more I like it. I hardly miss Waterloo. Well, I do miss the Princess Cinemas, and the Asian restaurants on University, and the Waterloo Park (mostly for sentimental reasons; we got married there), and Conestoga Mall, but other than that, not really. We drove through Waterloo on our way to Elora on Saturday and noticed that not much had changed, which was kind of disappointing. For some reasons, I was expecting Waterloo to have transformed into a bustling metropolis while I wasn’t looking. I’m silly that way.

I was expecting something similar would happen to our cherry tree. The morning after we planted the tree, I had to check if the tree had grown a foot taller overnight. Of course it hadn’t. I almost wish we could skip winter so I could see the cherry blossoms. Almost. But winter is my favourite season. How could I skip it? Well, I would probably skip it for Troy if I could because I love him and stuff and he hates winter.

Geez Louise, blogging every day is tough. And it’s only Day 3 of NaBloPoMo! C’mon, people! Cheer me on! If you’re a lurker, please delurk! Tell me I can do it! Suggest some topics for me to blog about! Please pretty please with sugar on top?

I’ve been thinking about my photography a lot lately. I do want to make it a career but I just don’t know if I have what it takes to be a professional photographer. I know I’m a good photographer, as in I have the eye. What I’m lacking is the people skill. I’m not very good with people. Hell, I’m SCARED of people. That’s why I prefer taking pictures of landscape and animals to taking pictures of people. Unfortunately, there is no money in that. At least not for me since I know there are many other photographers who make a boatload of money from landscape and animal photography. I like to think that I just haven’t got to that stage YET (my sad attempt at positive thinking) but what if I’ll never get to that stage? People seem to like my work but apparently not enough to want to own it and hang it on their walls (except for the few people who do have my work hanging on their walls or have bought my work, you know you’re awesome).

I really need to get over my fear of people. Not really an easy thing to do if you were me. I grew up in a society where people are super judgmental. Growing up, my father seemed to care more about what our neighbours think about us than what WE think about us. I’ve had the idea that people are evil because they judge, because you’ll never know what they say about you behind your back, planted in my head for so long that it’s become almost impossible to pull out.

Now that I’m living in another country and another society, I know I should give people another chance, especially since I need to market my skills to people in order to help the family economy (not that we live in poverty or anything but we do need to travel). I’ve also met some super nice people here whom I know won’t judge me or talk nasty about me behind my back. I know that by fearing people, I’m being judgmental myself, which makes me one of those people I fear, and it’s so screwed up that I don’t know what to think about that. In fact, I’ve never thought about it before. Oh the wonder of stream of consciousness writing!

I guess what I need to do is: (1) stop judging people/seeing them as monsters; (2) figure out what I’d like to focus on in my professional photography (I’m thinking family, maternity, pet, and children, and maybe small weddings); (3) revamp my portfolio site to make it more business-like and put in some new work that I’m proud of; (4) do some marketing; (4a) make some business cards; (4b) maybe put some ads somewhere?; and last but not least (5) practice talking on the phone (I’m telephonophobic — when I’m talking on the phone, my brain shrinks to pea-size).

On an unrelated note, I fell in love with the music of Frances England today (I’m a sucker for sweet, folksy, kiddy songs) and would someone please buy both her CDs for me, kthxbai.

I’ve been wanting to update for a week or so but procrastination always gets the better of me. But look on the bright side. Those unlucky enough to not have been to our house can see a picture that was taken inside our house! Yes, it’s the one up there! You can see one of my precious plants and one of our IKEA table lamps. Well, part of them anyway. Aren’t you lucky? ;)

The picture above was taken with the camera that ended my photographer’s block. You see, after our trip out West in September last month year, I kind of lost interest in photography. My creative juice just stopped flowing. When we went to Winnipeg in February this year, I thought it would inspire me to take a lot of pictures. Not really. The trip only gave me the right to brag about having been in Winnipeg in winter. And then we got busy with the whole finding and buying a house thing and photography got put in the back seat under a huge pile of printouts of house-for-sale ads.

Fast forward to Monday last week. I was browsing around the Intarweb, looking at pictures people took, and I was thinking how awesome it would be if I had $4,000 lying around to spend on a full-frame DSLR camera and a fast lens. But then I remembered that all 35mm SLR cameras are full-frame and I happen to have one that comes with a fast lens. So I started digging out boxes and boxes of cameras to find the camera I had in mind. When I found it, I loaded a black and white film into it and started shooting. And I fell in love all over again with photography.

The said camera is a Canon AE-1 Program with a Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 lens. It was an impulse eBay purchase from January this year. I think I paid less than $50 for it. Bought it, got it in the mail, learned that it worked perfect and forgot all about it. Never touched it again until that fateful Monday. I’ve bought another lens from eBay for it since, a Canon FD 28mm f/2.8 wide angle lens. It just arrived in the mail this morning. I think I’m going to give it a whirl this evening, shooting the landscape outside of town at sunset.

We’re going to a camera show next month and I’m hoping to be able to find more lenses for the camera. I love how cheap Canon FD lenses are nowadays. Cheap and sharp don’t usually go together but in this case, they do, much to my delight. If you want to see some of the pictures from the first roll I shot with the camera, they’re in this Flickr set. There are still more that I haven’t uploaded yet. Will let you know how the second roll — which is in colour — turns out. And I’ll definitely bring the camera up to the cottage over the Thanksgiving weekend next month.

Speaking of photography, I’ll have another picture — a Polaroid — published in a magazine soon. Kind of excited about it, even if it’s not the first time. Will brag about it again later once the issue is out and available for purchase. Heh. I know, I’m shameless.