I was hanging out with a group of strangers the other day, when the topic of instagram came up. I hid the fact that I'm "instafamous"[not my description of myself], because I was curious about what they thought of the platform. It turns out, to them...using non-phone cameras is a form of cheating, because the point is to post as life happens. I can definitely see their point. I personally try to post as close as I can with my film photos, and generally post right away when it comes to phone photos. [I don't believe in over-editing...which is another topic]
But that brings me to the point of the post....I don't think its cheating. I know tons of extremely talented phone photographers, and even more people that own DSLRs that seem to mainly use it to photograph their food. Below I have posted examples of bad and good photos I've taken throughout the years. Not all my film photos are magnificient...the moral being anybody can use a camera....but it really takes somebody with a good eye to take a good photo, regardless of what they are using to take it with. Mannn....I've even seen good photographers take good photos with reeally reeeally bad cameras...
top row: "eh" film photos
middle row: unedited iPhone 4S photos [yes, even the blue horse]
bottom row: Hipstamatic photos on a 3GS or iPod Touch 4G [with less than 1mpx resolution!]
i just finished developing my film from this past weekend. i think i might've either left some chemicals sitting for too long, didn't wash the film completely, or you people have just been out in the sun without any proper protection...because some of the images came out with a hint of red. i'm going to clean my scanner and film positives of dust and re-scan them later...alot of dust collected on the film while drying.
By the way, Happy Birthday to my girlfriend <3
I decided to go ahead and back the Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner. I'm a little iffy about this to be honest. Mainly because for the same price....you can get a good quality scanner from craigslist. but the main reason i got this was because you can run an entire roll of film through the box without having to cut the film, then put it in an awkward mask. I'll be scanning all my future b&w negatives with this..and will professionally scan them if I come across a few shots that need to be in a gallery.
The only downside to this scanner that I see is that it will only take 35mm. So no 120 film, or 35mm mounted slides. I'll probably have my lab scan those for me though. So no worries.
Walking around the strip by myself and inebriated, my mind still level headed enough to have the ability to search for visually appealing individuals, as well as an unusually elaborate vernacular [this is being transcribed from my journal i keep to remember all the people i meet] I meet Hank. I met him on the way to Fat Tuesdays, so I didn’t stay to chat. But his hat was something I felt I needed to capture on film.
I ask him if I can take his portrait, he says yes…”but wait”….then he flips a switch on the back of his hat, and motors start whirring as lights flash and little figures animate like a ride on disneyland. and I don’t know if its the rum, or me being easily amused…but i was absolutely fascinated with his hat. I left the encounter exchanging fist bumps.
camera: Canon Snappy LX
film: cross processed Fuji Velvia 100 35mm
