I haven’t had time to take my cameras out for a couple of months, what with being busy looking for a new job and Paris being so cold and grey. But I’ve finally settled my professionnal situation and the weather has been getting nicer and nicer.
I was recently invited to my ex-colleague’s wedding in the lovely 18th arrondissement of Paris (Montmartre, painters, the Sacré Coeur, Amélie Poulain and all that). After a fun photo shoot with the wedding photographer (who admired my Fisheye lens), we headed to a small and cozy restaurant where we proceeded to eat and drink in honour of the new official couple, Veerle (Belgium) and Josué (Guatemala).
That’s where I was able to get some nice, unusual wedding photos:
Congratulations to the couple!
Posted on 5 March '10 by gOnzO, under photos. No Comments.
Some time ago I bought a Lomography SuperSampler 4 lens camera, which made really cool pictures. Unfortunately the crappy little string mechanism (a very flimsy chord that had to be pulled in order to advance the film) broke after one roll of photos, and then I made things worse by trying to fix it myself (I know, I know, shouldn’t have tried to open it, but I was pissed off…).
Anyway, after that bad experience I had decided to stop experimenting with novelty cameras, especially when they’re 40 to 50 bucks each. And then I heard about the Disdéri toy cameras, which were extremely cheap (from 10 to 15 bucks), but also very hard to find (they seem to be produced in Korea and commercialized around East Asia).
Thank god nowadays we have Ebay, and I quickly found a seller that had the 3 lens and 4 lens cameras. I wasn’t able to test them out immediately since it’s been getting grayer and rainier around Paris, but I did manage to find a sunny day to test the 3 lens camera in and around the 19th arrondissement (park and canal).
Below are some of my favorite shots from that first roll of film. Hopefully I’ll soon have more of those, including from the 4 lens camera. Enjoy!
Posted on 4 November '09 by gOnzO, under photos. No Comments.
All over Paris some pretty cool-looking FotoAutomat machines have been popping up. A couple of weeks ago we decided to have some fun with the retro black & white effect and some awesome Mexican wrestling masks my mother brought us straight from Mexico.
I’m really happy with the results, and for 2 bucks per strip I think we’ll be taking many more. You can find many more examples here.
Posted on 23 October '09 by gOnzO, under photos. No Comments.
Two weeks ago I went for a little week-end trip to Brussels. I loved the city, the beer, and its giant flea market at Place du Jeu de Balle.
While there I looked for old record players, books, records, beer glasses, expired photo films, and vintage photographs. For a while now I’d been jealous of HillbillyXX‘s incredible collection of old/vintage found photos. Not only does he have some amazing photos that are much more than simple vernacular photography, he updates his collection almost daily.
I, on the other hand, only updated my collection once every fortnight, since good and affordable photos are hard to come by (I’ve had anything from .50 to 5 euros a photo!). It wasn’t until I stumbled upon a collection of old photo albums in Brussels that I realized that buying in bulk was the only way to satisfy my constant cravings for old photos of unknown/forgotten people.
This particular seller had some 4 or 5 albums, out of which only one had several photos per page while the other ones had one or two photos a page. The guy wanted 50 euros for the album, but I was able to bargain for 25 bucks (I haven’t counted the exact number of photos inside, but I’m pretty sure i got it for less than if I’d bought them individually).
Since I haven’t meticulously examined the photos I cannot say for now if the whole album consists of one single family or if it’s a mix and match of different friends’ and families’ memories. What i do know is that the album itself was manufactured in Brussels, and that each page is labeled with names of places in France (“Toulouse”, “Bordeaux”, etc.). As far as I can tell the placement of each image in the album does not correspond to the label on the page, which leads me to believe that either they were hurriedly rearranged in there or that they simply do not correspond to the album (meaning that they were added to a random album).
I haven’t had time to select my favorite photos, nor to scan them individually, but for the time being I’ve managed to take pictures of each page. Enjoy!
Posted on 23 October '09 by gOnzO, under photos. 3 Comments.
I once bought a Polaroid Spectra 2 for 5 bucks at a flea market, eager to take instant photos and enjoy the retro feel of the prints. Little did I know that the Polaroid technology and its accessories were more expensive than I thought…
Now that the Polaroid factories have closed all the cartridges and films that are out there are the only ones in existence! Which means that they are increasingly difficult to find, and when you do, they’re damn expensive (20 buck or more for a roll of 10 pictures!!).
Thankfully websites like Polapremium allow people to buy cheap(er) films, while initiatives such as Save Polaroid have sought out to collectively buy the Polaroid factories and restart production.
But what can one do in the meantime, apart from buying over-priced cartridges (I just bought a 3-pack for 50-something bucks, it hurts!)? Thankfully people like the geniuses behind Poladroid have come up with a temporary alternative.
This free peace of software allows you to transform your favorite digital shots into retro Polaroid shots, complete with scratches, dents, and random colors. Of course this isn’t the real thing, and no one is trying to pass it off as the real thing (I refer of course to some heated debates here and here).
Anyway, here is my selection of some of my favorite Poladroids:
Posted on 21 September '09 by gOnzO, under photos. No Comments.
