Technical difficulties

Still haven't hooked up the new house to the internets, and haven't had much time for troubleshooting. I'm over at Julie's house now using her computer while she is outside in the beautiful fall weather trimming shrubs and such. I'm still trying to figure out where all the @alphabitch.org email is being transferred to, and redirect it to the proper place.

In other bad news, I got the film back from the Asheville trip, the one where I brought the Holga. Here's some advice to Holga owners everywhere: throw away the fucking lens cap.

That is all.

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.].

Friday llama blogging

Hey, remember that nice wedding I went to a while ago? Did I mention there were llamas there? There were llamas there. At least I think they were llamas. I'm not entirely sure if these are llamas or alpacas, to be perfectly honest.

But in any case, there I was with the Holga, and there were the llamas (or whatever), so of course I had to photograph them. They didn't seem to mind, though when I rejoined the crowd at the party, someone mentioned that they'd been waiting anxiously to see whether I was going to grab hold of the fence, which was of course electrified (it's visible at the bottom of the frame and behind the llama's head). I didn't. I could see the insulator thingys at the corners and I figured it was probably electric. How else are you going to keep a bunch of llamas inside the fence?

Intrepid traveler returns

I guess it's true that I don't get out enough. I went to Asheville with a friend this weekend and I got home today & feel as if I've been away forever.

I was gone for maybe 36 hours, if that. It's not that far away; a couple of hours, maybe?

But it's a funny thing about traveling -- whether by car or plane: even though I am just sitting there on my ass the entire time, I always arrive feeling as though I've walked, carrying my luggage, for however long it took me to get there. It's as if my body somehow knows how far I've gone, and gets tired on account of it. But it also knows I've been sitting on my ass the whole damn time, so I'm also kind of wired and restless.

I never said I was consistent.

I did, however, have a great time. I love going to Asheville, and I always want to move there after I visit. This lasts a day or so. There's just not a great job market in my field, though, and I would totally suck at waiting tables or working retail. Plus I was looking at the real estate prices and there is no freaking way I could afford to live there at all. But it's full of sweet young things with groovy tattoos, and middle-aged hippie retirees, and everybody brings their dogs everywhere and there are lots of restaurants and there's music and art and, well, tourists. You know how they are. And little shops. There are lots of little shops.

Asheville is totally different than here. This is a great place to live, but I probably wouldn't want to visit, if you know what I mean.

I'd post pictures, but I only brought the Holga. It'll take me a while to get the film processed, etc.

The Holga goes to a party

The Holga and I recently attended a beautiful wedding. And that (see photo at left) is a very happy couple.

I even got kind of weepy during the ceremony -- I did! I cried! at a wedding! and that has certainly never happened to me before.

For a minute there I could almost understand why someone might think it was a good idea to get married.

For a minute there I was willing to consider the possibility that I'd never actually even been in love before and I should just shut up already because I clearly don't know what the hell I'm talking about. And there was even a minute or two during which I was prepared to let go forever of my politics and my cynicism and even my chronic grumpiness, at least with regard to weddings and the institution of marriage.

Almost.

I did manage to banish all that cynicism, grumpiness, and politics for the rest of the day and have a great time dancing and drinking and talking and eating fabulous food. I did not waste a second of it in pointless analysis. I love dancing!

See, I don't usually go to weddings, and I can't imagine that I'd ever participate in one; I'm not religious, I'm not especially romantic, and I'm basically kind of a scofflaw when it comes right down to it.

I guess I've been grumpy about weddings ever since I found out that my cousin's wedding dress cost more than all my college loans put together. And of course her daddy paid for it, along with her tuition. And her dress was ugly and the food was lousy, and the place was full of mean-spirited gossipy people. Just like at my other cousin's wedding, where on top of all that the groom's friends put a ball & chain around his ankle. Hahahahaha. Isn't that funny? Or my other cousin's wedding, where the bride (five months pregnant!) fainted at the feet of the Blessed Virgin Mary as she did that old-school R.C. thing of stopping to leave her flowers in front of the statue. Just before she left the church to start her happy new life with my cousin the convicted felon with anger management issues. They were both 19.

Oh, and cynical, did I mention that I'm cynical?

And then there's that whole 'forever & ever' thing. And forsaking all others? Just not my cuppa cappuccino, if you know what I mean. I could probably do it, but it's not something I long for.

Plus, marriage is a cornerstone of the patriarchy & everything. The very cornerstoniest, if dear Aunt Twisty is to be believed.

A lot of folks I know attribute my antipathy to marriage to a 'sour grapes' type attitude on my part, on account of I'm a lesbian & I can't get married, not legally or anything like that, & so I just want to rain on everyone else's happy little picnic. And maybe I do, but I'm not, strictly speaking, a lesbian any more. More of a has-bian I guess you could say. And as a bisexual I guess I could marry a man if I wanted to, but if I think about that too hard, it's more than just silly that I could marry a man but not a woman. I like men just fine, don't get me wrong about that. More than just fine, some of them. But it makes my brain hurt to think about it.

I've said a number of times before, that the only reason I'm in favor of making same-sex marriage legal is so that I can demonstrate more comprehensively my opposition to the whole thing by declining the opportunity to marry a woman either. I mean, it was one thing to live as an outlaw with my lovely ex-wife, and it's funny to call her my lovely ex-wife, but in truth we were never married, and would probably not have chosen to marry if we could have done. We talked about it. But it doesn't really mean anything to say that, because it's entirely hypothetical.

But none of that is my point. My point is that I attended the wedding of the happy couple pictured above, and it was beautiful. Yes, they spent a lot of time planning it and took great pains to ensure that everything was just the way they wanted it. Yes, it was probably expensive, and a bit of a hassle here and there. But it really seemed to me that they had a handle on what the whole event really means, and even what the whole 'marriage' thing is actually about.

Plus it seems like they are so in love. I mean that deep kind of love that is sensible and goofy and adorable and reliable and funny and sweet. And romantic and very likely pretty hot -- I don't know them well enough to ask them about it. But they are love geeks. And the day was gorgeous and the food was delicious and the wine flowed freely and the guests mingled and danced and everybody there had so much genuine affection for these two.

I personally hope they live happily ever after.

Stella + the Holga

Here's another Holga picture: Stella out on the lawn across the street earlier this summer, taken just before sunset.

If you click on the picture, you'll see another picture of her out on the porch at the neighborhood pub.

The monitor (and/or maybe the scanner) adds an extra layer of unpredictability to the Holgafication process.

Excellent!

Holga pics

As long as I'm on the subject of bad habits learned from other bloggers, I guess it would be a good time to post a couple of photos from the Holga. I got them back from the processor a couple of weeks ago already, but I was having some problems getting my new scanner to work.

Anyway, this one is a 1960s Mercury Marauder in front of a 1930s-era Shell station. You can't see it very well in this picture, but click on the link to get a better look. It's awfully cool looking. The online guide to offbeat tourist attractions, roadsideamerica.com, describes the station as a "radiant symbol of a bygone era, when fossil fuel seemed happily inexhaustible." Those were the days, eh? I think this car evokes those days pretty effectively as well. Beautiful in its way, and very shiny, but definitely a relic.

I took this one of some laundry on the clothesline behind my house. The plastic Holga lens distorts the perspective in an odd way, and I find this picture fairly ominous. Plus it looks so bleak, and it was a pretty bright sunny day. Maybe it's just freaking me out on account of all the looming bras -- I first heard about the Holga cameras from Twisty Faster, who is, incidentally, now back at home, symmetrical in her boobularity once again.

Goddamn fucking cancer. Goddamn fucking BRCA2 gene.

Bad influences, part one: The Holga

I believe I've mentioned that I am a big fan of Twisty Faster over at I Blame the Patriarchy.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say I maybe had some kind of wild crush on her.

A while back Ms. Twisty mentioned that she'd acquired a Holga, and I started reading about them and decided I absolutely had to have one. Judging from the comments at Twisty's place, I was not the only one.

As you can see on this photo of my neighbor's lawn, the camera does all kinds of amazing things, what with the light leaks, and odd shadows around the edges, and the unpredictable focusing. I think this one, like the one below of poor dear Pirate Jenny, was shot on expired slide film and cross-processed. [Update: but the gal at the place where I had it processed says that they wouldn't have done that, that it must have been negative film, not slide film. But the negative says "fujichrome" on the edge, and all the other rolls of fujichrome film I have are slide film. Whatever. It looks cool.]

In addition to the camera, I also found & purchased a whole pile of expired 120 film on eBay.

I read somewhere or another that you could introduce even more randomness into the process by using expired film, plus it was extremely cheap.

This is Luna, one of Stella's buddies at the neighborhood pub.

I purchased the fancy version of the Holga; it has three [ahem, four] focus settings: you can select an icon representing one person, two people, a small crowd, and a mountain. There is nothing on there about dogs. Or yards.

But it's not entirely clear that changing the setting does all that much anyway, especially in daylight.

It's certainly the case that what you see in the viewfinder bears only the slightest resemblance to the finished photo.

In this photo of my dear departed minivan, Pirate Jenny, the viewfinder was entirely filled by the van.

No background at all, and I was even afraid I wouldn't get it all in the frame.

I'm not sure what causes that weird little notch, or why it's sometimes on the top & sometimes on the bottom. But it's on all the pictures.

Anyway, I'm having a good time with it, but I can see this turning into an expensive hobby despite the initial $20 camera purchase. I'm going to use a lot of film and it will all have to be processed.

And I'm going to annoy everyone by photographing things incessantly.

Oh well. Thanks, Twisty!

• Bad Influences, part three: The DIY Haircut
• Bad influences, part two: The pedometer
• More Holga pics added July 19, 2006