One thing I love about this set was the numerous amount of interesting stuff. I get to play around shapes, the light, lines, shadows, reflections and textures.

I’m disappointed that a couple of shots I really like didn’t work out well, exposure-wise. I haven’t been doing my “assignment” (light metering) so I’ve been lagging behind.

Medium format has always been a dream. I love my TLR.

It was a very cold Saturday and a good time for a committee meeting, chai tea and red velvet cake.

It was also a good time to bring my Yashica A, loaded with T-Max 100 lying around somewhere. Now that my stock of black and white film is slowly dwindling down because of my project I realized I should have kept track how many I have.

Had a bit of a trouble with the exposure there. Better luck next time.

Also a good time to take photographs because the TLR is quiet and non-assuming. I love it.

New Years Eve 2011 at downtown (this is not a continuation of this entry) but was there to meet up with L after her co-op program at Saskatchewan.

Interestingly I also brought a rangefinder; my Olympus 35 SP to test it out. This is a late entry as you can see, since I’ve already posted multiple photographs taken by that camera. This is the first roll though, which I also got over the holidays.

What a good way to catch up with coffee.

We decided to go to Parlour Cafe at Main St. Lovely place.

I had an accident last Sunday. The photos on this entry were taken using a bulk Ilford FP4 Plus 125 ISO. But the canister that it was in is the same as the other bulk roll that I have in 400 ISO. So I ended up shooting it as a 400 ISO (camera also set to 400).

I never pushed film before so this is brand new to me.

As you may know I am a big fan of high contrast black and white so this one totally rocked. So glad it turned out really well.

The rest of the photos (below) were taken using an actual 400 ISO film.

I saw this ad and I begged to differ. Sometimes, we need to let go people in our lives, especially if the connection does not work anymore. I think what prevents us from doing so is the idea of letting go and losing someone, regardless if they cease to be important. We are social beings after all, and for us there is a constant need to connect, to socialize.

With the advent of social media we get to connect with old friends. Such a weird term, “old friends.” Sometimes I wonder, how long do we have to hold on to these “old friends”? Not that I find them bothersome. We need to connect to people from our past, but do we set boundaries? How? With Facebook we filter things and at the same time over-share to people, leading to misunderstanding and arguments. Funny how it happens to “old friends”. I guess we grow up and suddenly we realize that the “connection” is not there anymore. It’s just the history that binds us together. But is that enough?

I have enough of dealing with changes in my life (in addition to the daily things I need to do) that I have no patience to “old friends” whose obviously behaviour and personality changed. Especially in my case wherein I have been living away from the Philippines for the past 8-9 years. My personality, behaviour and views changed as well. I look at my timeline and some people whom I used to spend a lot of time with just annoy me. Is it worth it to “keep” them? I don’t know. I am afraid to be rude, or be labeled as someone arrogant “just because I don’t live there anymore.”

Honestly, we need to walk away. Be fond of the memories from the past, but if the connection is starting to hurt the present then we need to severe it, no matter how hard it is.

Taking advantage of the relatively warm weather last Sunday, I went out to Downtown to run some errands (meet friends: never happened, delivered my C-41s, etc.). Sunday in Winnipeg tends to be fairly quiet. Edmonton is quiet too (I guess, I always worked on Sundays when I lived there) and Toronto is no way near the word “quiet” even on a weekend. Interestingly I find my quiet Sundays to be enjoyable (as opposed to when I was younger–was used to the malls open longer regardless of which day of the week it is).

I suppose I am getting old and getting tired of the noise in the environment.

Downtown Winnipeg is the hub of hockey, in my opinion as a non-hockey/non-sports fan. And I think it’s good for the city. I like the idea that it brings people together in a central place.

On a Sunday however, it is still quiet. It was chilly last Sunday though but relatively warm nonetheless. Except for this week (at the time of this post), we’ve been getting higher temperatures and hit positive temperature on some days. It’s insane, but I like it.

I stayed at Tims because I was supposed to meet up with Pat (who arrived back from Taiwan) but he did not show up (jet-lagged). I ended up staying there, studying. Good thing I brought my notes.

This stranger approached me and asked if I have a camera with me (my SP was beside me) and asked if I could take his photo. I did. He then asked if I was married, to which I replied no. He (jokingly) said that he’ll marry me instead, to which I responded that my boyfriend will be mad.

He said that I should get married and have kids, and if that happens, he would like to have a copy of this photo.

Ah downtown. The things I see and the strange (yet interesting) people I meet.

I had a fresh roll of Ektar 100 and when the first traces of snow showed up sometime in November, thought it was a great opportunity to shoot and capture winter on film.

I shot within my block–not too far. I was also playing around with exposures knowing that Ektar leans more to the red spectrum. Wondering how the white will turn out. (As you can see here the browns turned a bit reddish blue)

I also scanned these using my new Epson V500! Loving the scanner and it is definitely an awesome investment. For the past couple of years I’ve been bringing my medium format films to the photolab for scanning, which costs a lot and also hinders me to do a lot of medium format (unless there’s a need for me to print them alone). But now I can scan my negatives. Who’s the happy camper?

I think I should be shooting more medium format, don’t you think?

2012. Midnight was spent with family, the late afternoon was spent at my friend’s house for my goddaughter’s birthday party.

Before I move on, I just started developing my own films again. This time I ignored my dislike for math (ratios in this instance) and learned how to measure the ratio between the chemicals and the water. Kids, when your teachers say you need math in everyday life, they’re not shitting you. It’s true.

I did realize however that I need to get a decent set of hanging clothespin (if you’re Filipino you know what I mean) and a bottle of Photoflo. And a squeegee. I got some ugly dry water stains and scratches because of the lack of space to hang my negatives. Oh well.

If you’re a risk-taker (in this case, this is just a euphemism for stoops) like me, it is probably not a good idea to jump in to this year-long project without testing the camera. I did pop in a roll of Superia 400 the day before but I haven’t even brought it to the photolab so I wasn’t even sure if the exposure was spot-on. (It was recently serviced before I received it)

Oh well. I guess it worked.

Still having a bit of a hard time with the camera’s ergonomics and rather sticky shutter button (like the Trip 35′s) but I love the lens. Definitely loving it. I discovered that on full-auto mode the camera does not take a picture if it thinks there’s not enough light. This manifested when I used it because it was loaded with 100 ISO. Really similar to the Trip 35 except for the red flag. I by-passed it by going manual (f/2.8; 1/30). It worked! And the tone was the one that I was looking for (as opposed to the rather bland and flat auto exposure of the previous photographs).

On an unrelated note, I need a longer camera strap.

Sticking to one camera alone seems to be pushing it a bit (even though I fully empathize with the reasoning behind it) plus I shoot digital when I get hired once in a while. The thought of shooting a Diana F+ once a month crossed my mind too but other than that I wasn’t so sure what to do.

Enter the Olympus 35 SP.

K gave this to me as a (semi) surprise holiday gift. I wasn’t expecting it and honestly I know nothing about the camera so there wasn’t much of an excitement that went on. However as a diligent girlfriend I researched about it and also to circumvent the lack of enthusiasm about the camera I decided to use this as a tool for this year. Then I thought about incorporating the “one camera, one lens” project with this, but with modifications.

So to make this whole story short, I’m using the 35 SP as my main camera this year. With the exception of my test roll (a gifted Fuji Superia 400), everything will be shot in black and white. I might stick with one brand for this year but seeing my lack of black and white film stash I ended up using a Kodak T-Max 100 as my first black-and-white roll. K and I will decide which films to buy this weekend when we buy stuff at Freestyle.

I already bought my first batch of fresh chemicals which should last me for 3-5 months the most, depending on how often I’ll develop my films.

I named the project as “Takeshi” project after the Olympus’ founder. I might even name this camera Takeshi (just to follow the tradition of naming my cameras in Japanese, just for the heck of it).

As for my accompanying cameras for the rest of the year, I’ll be using the X10 for my regular digital snaps, the D7000 for any work-related and portfolio shoots and my Yashica A for my medium format work (using black and white film).

I might even push through with the Diana F+ related project I have in mind but we’ll see if I’ll get there. But the point of this project is to limit myself by intentionally accessing less tools and to go back to the basics. Frankly, I think I skipped the whole process when I started photography. This year I am going to take it slow and learn lots.

I am definitely loving Kodak’s new Portra 400! Was seriously afraid that it won’t withstand the lighting but it was terrific. Love the results and the color as well.