The Plastic Lens ~ words

Respect

Cameron — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:36:47 +0000

A photographic exhibition by the friends of Jeff Moorfoot

One hundred photographers show their appreciation for the hard work done by the Ballarat International Foto Biennale Director, donating some of their finest work to be sold on his behalf. A once in a lifetime opportunity to purchase works by these artists at a very modest price.

Works are on view at the Gallery from tomorrow and opening drinks are on Thursday Feb 11th from 6 – 8pm

Feb 8-28
at New North Gallery and Fine Art Printing
15a Railway Place Fairfield Vic 3078. Opposite Fairfield railway station.

PH: 9018 3081
e: david@newnorth.com.au e: michael@newnorth.com.au

Open Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 4pm.

Opening drinks Thurs. Feb 11th 6-8pm

Artists involved:
ABBOTT Colin, ADAMS Peter, AVELLINO Mark, BACHMAN Bill, BODIN John, BOWES Peter, BOWYER Julie, BROOK Fiona, BROWELL Anthony, BROWNBILL Sally, BUCKLEY Carolyn, BURDER Tim, BUTCHER Noel, CALLOW David, CHAPMAN Andrew, CIANTAR Alan, CLARK Alan, COYNE Michael, Da COSTA Nuno, DIAZ Maggie, DIEMER Kristin, DINAS Heather, Di PAOLO Lucy, DOVE Melanie Faith, DUCKWORTH Neale, ELMS Greg, EVANS Joyce, EVERTON Samantha, FARRELL Leo, FEIL Joseph, FLETCHER Gillian, FORD John, FRANKLIN Chris, GARWOOD Roger, GAULD Robin, GERHARD Andre, GILKES Brian, GLATTAUER Silvi, GODMAN Lloyd, GORDON-BROWN Susan, GRIFFITH Tim, HAMMOND Shireen, HARRINGTON Elda, HAWKES Ponch, HIRANO Masaki, HERZOG Naomi, HOUGH Julie, HOWLETT Fran, IMHOFF Robert, IOANNOU Ellii, JOHNS David, JOYCE Deb, KUMNICK Richar d, KURAVITA Philip, LANDT-ISLEY Karen, LARCOM Donna, LARCOMBE Randy, LASLETT Susan,LUKEY Brent, LUSZPINSKI Jarek, McFARLANE Jim, McKENZIE Ian, MEGALOUDIS Mercury, MIFSUD George, MILLOWICK Julie, MONROE Mark, NAOROJI Nadish, NEWITT Neil, NICHOLLS Lynden, O’SHEA Meredith, PAGE Colin, PECKHAM Senga, RIORDAN Carmel, ROESSLER Thomas, ROSS Carol, ROWE Tracey, QUILLIAM Wayne, SAAD Lisa, SALVATI Maurizio, SAWDON Elizabeth, SEIGERMAN Krystal, SHAIN Christopher, SILVER Michael, SIMMONDS Dave, SLEETH Matthew, SPOWART Doug, STEPHEN Cameron, STOREY Abby, STREET John, SUBLET Charlie, SYNDIKAS Alex, TAM Howard, TITZ Tobias, WATKINS Skip, WISEMAN Colin,WOLF Anna, WOLF Andrew

Polaroid to make Instant Cameras again! (& World Toy Camera Day Coming Up!)

Cameron — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:10:10 +0000

Photographer Alex Syndikas at BIFB09 - taken with expired 600 integral film on a Polaroid 680 SLR SE

Less than a month after the last of the Polaroid Integral Instant film cartridges passed their use by date wonderful news has been released by those luminous people at The Impossible Project. The Impossible Project who have been working tirelessly to keep the beloved instant film alive released an update stating that the Polaroid licensee – The Summit Global Group – announced at a press conference on October 13th in Hongkong that they will re-launch some of the most famous Polaroid Instant Cameras. The Impossible Project itself has been working with Harmon Kardon to produce a new integral B&W instant film which is to be released to the market in early 2010, followed by a new batch of integral instant colour film (in collaboration with a different European company) Read more press in the online British Journal of Photography.
Just a side note, I have included the Polaroid of Alex I took a few weeks ago at the last day party for the Ballarat International Foto Biennale ‘09 because, well, one it’s a Polaroid and two, Alex became quite excited when he saw my SLR 680 was a ‘blue button’ edition camera and told me how (apparently) any owner of a blue button special edition Polaroid camera could, if unhappy with a shot taken with the camera, send it back to the company and get the film replaced for free, for the life of the camera. As he is obviously a Polaroid aficionado, I thought it only fitting to include his image captured on expired Polaroid integral film here, raising a toast to the good news!

Even though it’s late notice, it would be remiss of me to forget to remind everyone that WORLD TOY CAMERA DAY is THIS WEEKEND PEOPLE!! That is October 17, 2009
The following has been pinched & paraphrased from the flickr World Toy Camera Day Group –

Invented by Becky Ramotowski, who took the idea from World Pinhole Photography Day, World Toy Camera Day spawned a world wide annual event using toy cameras and shooting endless rolls of 120 and Polaroid film and even some crappy 35mm cameras too…and has been in circulation for nine years now. So on October 17, 2009 (this coming Saturday, remember) get your favourite plastic camera and take as many lo-fi exposures as you can! (and have FUN – that’s important!)

Scanning For Sprockets [Revisited]

Cameron — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:16:14 +0000

A while back I tried to explain how to get sprockets holes from your toy camera negatives scanned to a digital file correctly. My text and images where not entirely the best method to explain it so now finally I have produced a long overdue tutorial on how to use your scanner software to scan in 35mm negative film to include the sprocket holes. This is relevant when you are using toy cameras like the blackbird,fly or have a Holga or Diana modified to take 35mm film (or if you have a 35mm back to fit these cameras) for example.
I’m using a Canoscan 8400f to scan my negatives, but hopefully there will be some common points of reference if you are using a different scanner and/or different software. *note: You may be able to see what I’m doing better by going to the full screen view.

Unsensored [Coda] & Upcoming Events

Cameron — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:23:40 +0000

It’s been a busy year and it’s not over yet. Coming up in September is something I’ve been looking forward to for oh, 2 years now, since the last one! The Ballarat International Foto Biennale is about to kick off and anyone who is even vaguely interested in Photography would find more than enough to entertain and enlighten them in the month of September in the beautiful country Victorian town of Ballarat and it’s surroundings. Comprising 20 Core exhibitions, 60 Fringe shows, workshops, seminars, portfolio reviews, affiliate events, artist floor talks, camera market, special events…and much more it should be a fantastic start to Spring!
Then if that wasn’t enough, before we know it the next World Toy Camera Day will be upon us! That’s right, not long now, October 17, 2009 to be precise. There are other very funky thangs like HolgaPalooza happening at the moment, but perhaps I’ll get a chance to talk about that in my next post.

Finally I’ll leave you with a short movie filmed on the digital harinezumi. Wrapping up the last day of the Unsensored 09 exhibition at the Collingwood Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria on 19th August 2009. Covering the work of 43 artists using film in their photographic expression. Thanks to the committee and all who participated, exhibited, helped and attended. It was great!
Music: tiny beats by twoth – Lost films vol. 1 Powershovel Audio Allstars – www.powershovelaudio.com

Unsensored 09

Cameron — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:12:30 +0000

Unsensored 09

Unsensored 09 – The Melbourne Silver Mine presents Unsensored 09 an exhibition of analogue photography. Now in it 3rd year, The Melbourne Silver Mine’s UNSENSORED09 is the work of 43 artists using film in their photographic expression. Opening night Friday 7th August 2009 6pm at The Collinwood Gallery 292 Smith St Collingwood, Melbourne. The exhibition runs from the 7th – 19th of August. Mon-Fri 12pm -8pm | Sat & Sun 10am – 6pm.
The exhibitions official website is here.

Melbourne in Winter

Cameron — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:25:41 +0000

This post is not about photography or toy cameras per se, but about Melbourne at night this Winter. I went to the excellent Dali – Liquid Desires exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria late night and afterwards wandered around with my BBF attached to a tripod, shutter set on “B” for some night exposures. In Federation Square they had this great installation set up called VOLUME. It’s an audio visual installation made up of LED embedded pillars which respond with light and audio to people walking around them. It’s absolutely facinating and has to be experienced to truly appreciate it. This short video captures some of the ambience of thi audio-visual installation, which currently at Federation Square in Melbourne as part of The Light in Winter 2009 events. Some of the video is captured with the Digital Harinezumi by Superheadz and some on a more conventional Kodak M1093S camera. All audio is actual sound from the installation (and ambient surrounding noise)

VOLUME from artpunk on Vimeo.

‘Sometimes We Yearn For The Dream’

Cameron — Sat, 30 May 2009 02:13:14 +0000

Apologies for a general lack of content and updates. Dealing with a busy work environment (thank you Swine Flu!) and family life has left me with less time and energy than I normally would have. I am still taking photos when I can, of course. Thanks to a contact on flickr who pointed me to a Wired article on the blackbird,fly with a brief chat with Powershovel’s Hideki Ohmori. You can read the article here: Why a Plastic Camera Pioneer Reinvented Lo-Fi Film Shooters. I like his reply when asked why he was obsessed with film, where he explains that we can appreciate the quirks of film more so now we have digital to compare it with and says “We do not always want a faithful representation of reality. Sometimes we yearn for a dream.”

In other news I was browsing a local “Opportunity Shop” the other day and spied an Olympus XA camera with flash in it’s original box for a modest amount.

Olympus XA

Sure, it isn’t a toy camera, but I do shoot with other film cameras from time to time and had heard some good things about this camera, so I made a note to go back there with some money, but my youngest chose that time to fall off the school playground equipment and fracture her radius. So off to the hospital we went. By the time we left the hospital the shop was shut, but thankfully the camera was still there the next morning. I will be taking the camera loaded with film out soon and report back with example photos. There is so much more I have to share with you good readers, but that will have to wait a few days as unfortunately, work beckons again!

Pinhole Day and a Quick 1st impression of Harinezumi

Cameron — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:20:40 +0000

Pears WPPD 09

This years Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (last Sunday) was less than optimal (for me) for a lot of reasons. The weather was shocking, we had power failures, my computer froze when the power finally came back on and I was suffering from the jet-lag feeling that comes from just finishing night shift and having to adjust your body clock through a 12 hour 180º shift within a day…
Apart from those factors, I had fun and actually managed to grab a few pinhole exposures that I thought were not too bad (not brilliant either however). My two cameras of choice this year were my converted Polaroid EE66 with Polaroid 125i pack film and my Holgamods Pinholga using type 84 packfilm. I started the day with little coffee cups and ended (as I seem to do) in the kitchen with some fruit…

I‘m having a lot (A LOT) of fun with the Digital Harinezumi.

Harinezumi by Harinezumi

This probably has a lot to do with how much it reminds me of using an analogue toy camera. When in still capture mode, you do not get a LCD viewfinder mode, you have to estimate what you are capturing (and anyone who uses toy cameras will know that their viewfinders are less than accurate) You also have the option of turning off the review mode of the camera so that you won’t know what you have got until you download the images to your computer (so I suppose that’s the digital equivalent of waiting to get your film developed).
In movie mode, they’re is no audio as such, there is a bit of white noise. I think it may have been fun if they had the option of the whirr of an old 8mm camera sound as well as the movies generated by the camera remind me of those and the results look very analogue, like some old family home movies from the 1960’s.

Macro Toes by Harinezumi

The colours are kick-ass funky and similar to some sort of weird cross processing type of thing going on…
As you can see from some of my initial test images, the macro function (two choices of focus here macro or normal) works very well. There is nice grain in lower lighting conditions, feeling more reminiscent to me of film grain than ‘digital’ grain. I could go on and probably will, when I do an ‘out of the box’ video review of this little electric hedgehog later on this week, but I remain impressed with what Powershovel & Superheadz have come up with.

Harinezumi!

Cameron — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:44:08 +0000

harinezumi ambulance -a frame grab from the digital harinezumi movie

OK, here are my first takes with the super cool & groovy Digital Harinezumi from Superheadz in Japan, the footage here was captured in very poor light conditions, mainly due to:
1. The first shots being shot at night in subdued lighting (as I was on night shift at the time) &
2. the rest of the shots being taken in very overcast conditions (which have been present since I got the camera)
Despite these factors, I am very pleased with the results so far. I really can’t wait to take this camera out in the sunshine to see more of what it can do.
Post production was in iMovie ‘09 and most of the video footage is ‘as is’ the only filter is put on a 2 second segment at the ‘Ambulance Only’ doors where it goes B&W and static-like – some footage has been reversed, but that is about all as far as post production trickery goes…
The great backing music is ‘post’ by oco, from the ‘Lost Films’ compilation from www.powershovelaudio.com
I truly think that in this camera, Superheadz have created the first true digital ‘toy camera’ but also one that takes movies a well! A fantastic analogue-digital hybrid concept!

HARINEZUMI! from artpunk on Vimeo.

Harinezumi & World Wide Pinhole Photography Day!!

Cameron — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 00:14:36 +0000

The Digital Harinezumi from Superheadz

Woot! Double bonus for me (well, triple if you count my coming off nightshift yesterday morning) not only is it World Pinhole Day, my second equal favourite photography day of the year next to World Toy Camera Day, but the Digital Harinezumi from Superheadz arrived from Japan on Friday! More on both of these things later on, including example images and movies, but for now, please enjoy my ‘AudioBoo’

Listen!