Pali lookout panorama, multiple exposure, vintage Diana F, Kodak Ektar 100

I’m starting to process some of the multitudes of images I captured on O’ahu this past December. The above photograph was taken at a tourist pull-off on the Pali Highway, a scenic route that takes you over (and through) the mountains from Honolulu to Kailua on the windward coast.

By its nature, it’s a shot that probably untold millions of tourists had taken before me and a shot that millions of untold tourists will continue to take in the future; in my imagination however, I’d like to think I was the first to use a vintage Diana F with Kodak Ektar 100 to make a multiple-exposure panoramic.

I’ll continue to process these images for now, as my wife is itching to scrapbook/album our entire vacation and wants to see what I have to contribute. So, I’ll post anything of interest here and then bulk load the rest up to flickr.

In blog news:

• - I’m learning enough CSS to finally tweak most of the little things that I disliked about the blog layout. I’m still not 100% satisfied, as I still don’t truly understand why certain aspects refuse to change, despite my better efforts; but I’ll continue to work on it.
• - If anyone out there is knowledgeable in Wordpress, how do I get to fool around with the ‘dynamic_sidebar’? I want to have widget-specific CSS, but the sidebar doesn’t separate label widgets independently. Am I even making any sense?

I’ve been feeling inspirationally frustrated. I’m overwhelmed the sheer backlog of work just waiting to be processed, but at the same time I feel emotionally stymied that I haven’t shot anything new since the beginning of December.

I lack coherence. I’m no longer sure if I’m progressing or regressing.

I need anti-newton glass, an air filter, and a computer more capable than a netbook. I need more Diafine & film. I need to stop finding excuses & start finding answers. I need to break out of this rut.

I need to figure out just what it is I’m actually try to say.

Early design concept for the cover to the forthcoming TOYCAM book

For the past year or so, I’ve had the privilege to be part of a project within the Toycamera.com community to create a new book that explores toy camera photographers & the lo-fi images they create.

The brainchild of Andrew, of Green St Photography fame, he gathered a crack-team of toy camera enthusiasts as interviewers, editors, and designers to help put this project together. We’ve held several calls for entries in different themes, received hundreds of mind-blowing images from photographers across the globe and despite our best efforts, the book is actually beginning to take form and is slated for a release later in 2010.

So why am I writing about it now?

Because, my dear friends, there is still time to contribute to a tome that will come to define an entire generation of low fidelity photographers.

Hyperbole aside, if you have a crappy camera with a plastic lens that you’re passionate about making images with, send us your pics. We’d love to consider them. Really.

The current calls are for the themes of “Travel” & “Flora/Fauna,” but we may be adding more shortly.

Show us what you got and you just might get published.

Polaroid PoGo printer & print

Last year, I received a Polaroid PoGo printer for Christmas and with it came daydreams of creating a photo-a-day journal in a series of Moleskine Cahier notebooks….

I never made it out of January.

My beloved new gadget wasn’t what I hoped it would be… instead of being a source of inspiration, it became a major frustration.  So, soon it sat on a shelf gathering dust.

The PoGo is designed to be a mobile printer: a small, battery powered, pocket-size device that could print small 2×3 low fidelity pictures on the go.  A pseudo-replacement for the middle ground between film & digital photography lost after Polaroid bewilderingly discontinued its namesake instant films.

You would no longer need a bulky Polaroid camera with expensive film to have that instant gratification of physically holding a photograph you just captured… any digital camera would do, even your always-on-you cell phone (as long as your device had bluetooth or was PictBridge enabled and had a USB cable with you).

Sounded good enough to me.

Blinds with grass PoGo print

Yet the problem with the PoGo lies in the battery: It sucks.

The damn thing won’t hold a charge.

How can it be a mobile printer, if I was constantly tethered to a transformer and power cord whenever i wanted to use it?

I contacted Polaroid customer service about it and received a canned response that failed to address my specific issue, but rather stated that I should get 15-20 prints per charge. Yeah, I wasn’t even getting a single print off of battery power. So assuming I had a defective printer, I exchanged it @ Target for another one (but in doing so, I accidentally surrendered my only copy of the receipt).

The second verse was as same as the first. The new PoGo had the same issue as the previous one. It would work just fine while on the AC, but would red-light as soon as it was unplugged.

Then, as in life, I got distracted with other more important and sometimes shinier things that held my attention and the PoGo sat on a shelf gathering dust

…

But I recently returned to the device with a different set of expectations.

Old Orchard Beach, ME PoGo print

Ok, so it’s not what I thought it was going to be.  So what if I can’t print on the go? How often would I actually be compelled to print a cell-cam snapshot on a bustling street corner anyway? Or want to finagle a USB cable between the 40D & PoGo at the beach?

Maybe just being a quirky little specialty printer with a tiny footprint was alright. It’s still small enough to bring with while traveling, even if I have to bring an extra set of cords along, allowing for adhesive photographic enhancement to journal entries while on location, or at least back at the hotel room.

It really is a fun little printer that arbitrarily gives unexpected results; a virtue that I hold dear in my Holgas & Brownie Hawkeye Flash. It prints stickers photos that look like an random amalgamation of cross-processing, soft focused, odd cropping, streaks, and other what-nots that could make a Diana blush.

So, I find myself printing 2×3 images again.

But only when I’m near an outlet.

As you may or may not have noticed the redesign of www.expiredfilm.com has finally gone live.

I’ll still be tweaking it here and there, but for the most part I think I finally have a design I’m relatively happy with.

Now, this blog, on the other hand, still needs some work. I’m still trying to sort out how best incorporate some of the design elements of the main site into Wordpress.

But I’ll do my best to be diligent about updating more than twice a year.

Just an FYI, currently certain features are going to be on the fritz as I migrate the wordpress blog component to its new address at http://blog.expiredfilm.com and retool the main site to better fit my vision.

The bad news is that I’ll be figuring out how to do things as I go along, so stuff may stay wonky for awhile.

The good news is that I’ll most likely be better about updating as I make progress.

The updating here at expiredfilm.com has been a little lax of late, as I have been thinking of doing some sort of a major overhaul of the site design. I want to move away from Wordpress being the index and content manager of the site. I’ll keep WP around as a component of the site, but I think I want something more immeadiate for you the viewer.

Instead of just seeing whatever I happened to have posted last, I want you to see some of my best images right away; not have to notice the Gallery link on the right and have to navagate there, then wait for the page to load, then have to click on a thumbnail, then wait for the image to load, etc, etc etc….

I want “Here, this is what I’m about!!!” as soon as the browser resolves www.expiredfilm.com. I don’t want to be just another generic flash slideshow either, but I want to do more than I have now.

So with all these wants, the question now is “how?”

A young couple enjoys a gorgeous autumn afternoon in the Finger Lakes.

Flipped lens Brownie Hawkeye Flash on redscaled expired 35mm Kodak Gold 400.

Shot for World Toy Camera Day, October 18, 2008.

Yet another flipped lens Brownie Hawkeye Flash, Rollei Retro 400 developed in Diafine. Tinted in PS.

NY 86, near Lake Placid, NY.

Ausable River.

High Falls Gorge.

All taken with a flipped lens Brownie Hawkeye Flash, Rollei Retro 400 developed in Diafine.