Holga vs. 2 large kitties
So in addition to the numerous llamas, there were cats at this delightful wedding I went to recently.
If you click on the picture [or here], you can see what happened with the kitty at the table. She was quite brazen.
I happen to like cats and I'm rather blase about cats who belly up to the table and eat from your plate when you're not looking, but I recognize that not everyone knows what that's about. I mean, they're not exactly subtle when they take food off your plate. They sometimes didn't even bother to sneak. I was charmed, at any rate. I am less charmed when they eat off your plate when you are actually looking at them and you don't have a camera in your hand, but that's just me.
There were also quite a few other cats at this establishment, though I only successfully photographed those two -- and, like the llamas, the chickens, and the goats, they seemed to have free run.
Not that I disapprove (nor, as far as I could tell, did any of the other wedding guests). But it does seem kind of unusual, don't you think? Charming, to be sure, given the rural setting.
And they were such large cats. Here is another of the cats basking in the waning sunlight waiting for the whole event to get rolling. (And, it's likely, waiting for the whole thing to be over already, cats being the way they generally are.)
There will be more Holga photos to come, just as soon as I get my photo-processing allowance.
There's a bit of a backlog in the photo procesing department before I get to the Asheville pics. Sorry about that. Niether blogging nor photography is much of an income stream here at alphabitch.org. If you'd like to see that change, please email me at holga - AT - alphabitch - DOT - org and let me know. I'll certainly continue to post these rather low-res images, but I'd be happy to put up a tip jar or some such in exchange for prints or higher-resolution (e.g. printable) copies of the Holga photos if youall are genuinely clamoring for more photos.
Even if you're not exactly clamoring for more, and are not willing to pay actual money for your very own copies or to support what is after all my, ahem, habit, I sure have appreciated (and quite honestly would appreciate more of) your comments about the Holga pictures.
Also I encourage all of you to get your own Holga if you have any interest at all. The actual camera is cheap as hell, although the film and the processing and printing can be a huge money drain, especially if you are as lazy as I am about framing the shots, etc. I'm working on reducing the ratio of bullshit/unsuccessful shots to interesting/successful ones. And it's happening surprisingly fast, given that I usually work with digital photos and/or photos I can process myself and crop or delete without printing.
Success with the Holga requires a bizarre combination of discipline and letting go of control & expectations. Very good for some of us. But amazingly fun and it will -- I feel certain -- make one a better photographer when one returns to everyday life and one's regular camera [caution: the latter statement is purely conjecture on my part. And maybe a little wishful thinking.].
12 comments:
HEE. Love them. LOVE them.
They are also making me misty-eyed, reminding me of my beloved Java the Mensa Cat, a gigantic Siamese blend who once, early in our acquaintance, walked right up and took a sirloin steak off my plate, and then walked away nonchalantly with it. He was a big hug, and so, I suspect, are these guys. Makes my arms ache a little.
As for the rest, alas, I am in no position to help support your photography habit as I have a rather draining one of my own. Though I haven't fully abandoned my treasured $25/roll (film + dev.) Contax with its exquisite Zeiss optics, this summer I have been enjoying some of the Holga-esque (and far less expensive than actual Holga) effects of my boyfriend's cheap digital camera. The main expense there has been time. Oh, it's easy enough to shoot a couple hundred photos in an afternoon, but then you have to actually wade through them on the computer, choose the best, touch them up as appropriate, crop, watermark, etc. Kind of makes me miss slides, negatives and contact sheets. They're expensive and often environmentally wasteful, but you know what you've got immediately.
Anyway, thank you for sharing the products of your Holga adventure at whatever speed you can get to it. They are truly delightful.
I *HEART* your Holga pics. And, well, even better with cats. One of my kitties will join me at the dinner table and tap me on the shoulder until I either pet her or come correct with something from my plate. Although, she wasn't much interested in my chile cheese tamale last night. ;-) This kitty also has a penchant for eating her kibble with her paw, scooping it to her mouth. I fully expect to come home one night and find she's figured out how to work the phone and order pizza.
I love your description of the Holga's photographs where you talk about letting go of control. There's some sort of life metaphor in their that, pre-coffee, I'm just not smart enough to figure out.
As for how long it's taking you, feh! It give me a reason to come visit you every day to see if there's anything new. See, you've already come up with a brilliant marketing concept. ;-)
And, UPDATE, my Holga arrives Thursday! Wheeee!
Clearly pre-coffee ... that second graf should be a "there" not a "their." D'oh!
If I do anything, it'll be a tip jar type arrangement and not any kind of pay-per-view deal. I'm having way too much fun to keep these to myself. Besides, there are tax implications to sales vs. freewill offerings, and unless it turns out to be a lot of money (hahaha); it's not worth the hassle of keeping track. Been there, done that. But the (imaginary) photo processing allowance comes out of the (imaginary) beer allowance, and, well, I'm only willing to go so far with the cheap beer thing.
And yeah Sara, I sure miss having a darkroom to play around in. I know a couple of folks with decommissioned darkrooms that have expressed willingness to to operationalize them for me to use, but so far haven't moved ahead on that. And it's been so long, I'm not sure I even remember how to do it.
On the other hand, I'm tired of paying for prints of stuff that turns out badly, and the lab downstairs doesn't do contact sheets for 120 film, so it's all or nothing, printwise. And the 120 film doesn't fit in their scanner either, so I can't look at them on the computer screen.
But it's all about patience, right? Didn't I just say that somewhere or another?
Amy, last night I had dinner at Elvis' house, and he was up on the table just waiting (and NOT very patiently, either) for me to look away from my sirloin long enough for him to snag it & run. I'm not sure he was planning to share it with Stella, either, but she was so hopeful. And sometimes he does push things onto the floor for her to eat.
I kept giving him chunks of tomato, as much to distract him as to piss him off.
Just out of curiousity, does Snapfish do 120 film and can you save any money that way? Granted, you'd have to mail it away and maybe what you'd spend in postage you'd lose in savings ... but just a thought.
My Dad used to have a darkroom and I did do developing in high school and college but I've long forgotten everything I learned. Sigh. It would be fun to have a darkroom though. Just so you could point to that closet/room in your house and say, with a twitch of the brow, wanna come into my darkroom. :-)
The pictures in this post are not of alpaca or llama... I have done my research! :>)
Let me see if I can understand my Holga dream. I think it's because it takes photographs that look just like the pictures of my family when I was a baby. The pictures you see when you open up a dusty old photo album. Square, faded (?) . . . old-fashioned looking. Very retro.
Do I dare get one though? I keep on adding it to my Amazon wish list, and then thinking about the price of developing the photos, and then deleting it. I keep thinking about how I'm all thumbs when it comes to machinery and . . . believe it or not, it might be too complex for me!
good work, PoetryMan!
Hedonist: the "all thumbs" thing might work in your favor with the Holga. It's really pretty idiot proof because it's not all that complicated. And there is the added benefit, in my opinion, that what you see as mistakes or incompetence on your part will actually enhance the images, just as the so-called flaws of the camera are what make the photos so fascinating.
The expense of processing, however, remains.
I think your dream means in part that you can't control those around you, and their complications and flaws -- while they might compromise them and impair your perception of their inner beauty in certain ways (e.g. by not allowing them to conform to your expectations or causing them to repeatedly fail to live up to the letter of your demands), their true beauty and value is inseperable from their flaws.
Just a thought.
There is also the possibility that you are the camera in the dream (metaphorically speaking); what you see is limited by your ability to perceive it, and that there is a strange beauty to things on account of it.
I suggest, either way, that you consider the limitations of your perspective and the possibility that your perception of all these things is constrained by the very qualities that make your view so uniquely interesting and beautiful. In any case, it's plausible I think to suggest that your should try on all the possibilities in your head.
woooooooooooooooooooooooo that's deep. and, given my life, apropos. Thank you!
Are cats getting bigger? Or is the world getting smaller?
HSC: I think both of these are true. There are some very large cats, but also it's a very small world nowadays. It used to be much larger.
I'm thinking the cats will take over soon. The way things are going, they can have it.
Post a Comment