Sunday, June 15, 2008

Peonies and polaroids....

Photobucket

a little picture of the peonies my Gran gave me while we were visiting last week. I started playing with creating an sx70 effect of the photos but I'm not sure if I like it. If it had actually taken with a polaroid camera I would love it but I can't help but feel like it's just, well fake. And as I look at it I feel very distrustful of it. It has taken me a long time to accept digital photography at all, my true love is still black and white film photography and I desperately miss having a darkroom in our house. Spending hours alone under that one red lightbulb, the smell of chemicals on your hands and the world really and truly shut out, creating pictures as if by magic. No other photographers I know miss the darkroom, the hours spent trying to get one print right, the poisonous chemicals infiltrating your hair, staining your clothes, leaving your hands stinking for days. The frustration of the wasted paper, the hours and days you only realise you have lost when you emerge, blinking into the light. God I miss it. It's only the fact that I have an enormous pile of spools, some over three years old, sitting by my desk and waiting to be processed that has stopped me using my film camera recently. Oh how I miss my Pentax K1000, with it's one button, two switches and complete lack of digital anything. It took one tiny battery which has lasted over four years. It's light meter was a dial that moved manually. It had a beauty that my digital camera with it's 279 buttons, switches, options, lights, menus, auto-everythings will never have. It was a real camera.


So there you have it, some peonies and an attempt to recreate the beauty of - what I see as - real photography. An attempt that leaves me with an odd taste in my mouth.

14 comments:

  1. This is going straight into my inspiration board, even though I can't have peonies in August. (It kills me, because my aunt actually grows them...) But the mason jar, the simplicity of the arrangement. You hit it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks girly!

    I wish we could have these too, I love the simplicity of it. And they would be so cheap - the peonies were £3.99 for 5 and the jar's an old jar of beetroot!

    ReplyDelete
  3. those are beautiful and the color is total perfection

    ReplyDelete
  4. I MISS THE DARKROOM. you are not the only one. i have grown up a photographer, spent most of my life as a photographer, but now that i'm grown up, even though i take pictures for a living, i don't feel much like a photographer anymore. no matter how many photos i work on in photoshop, it will never compare to laying down to go to sleep, having spent the day in the darkroom, with the smell of fixer still on my hands.

    i got back into polaroids this year, as a way to reconnect with the spirit of photography that i always loved, only to find out two months later that polaroid was discontinuing the production of their integral films. ugh. what is the world coming to???

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think it's a beautiful shot, however you got to it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. oh it's beautiful! I love 'proper' photography too but this picture still rocks

    ReplyDelete
  7. That is a gorgeous shot!! The lighting is beautiful. You are very talented (which I've noticed before...)

    By the way, as far as weather is concerned, I'll trade you. It was 101 degress (F) here in Dallas, Texas yesterday. Ugh.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Flutter, thank you. You sweet girl.

    Amanda, I'm really glad I'm not the only one! The darkroom is a special place that only appeals to a select few me thinks! And you're right, I don't feel like a photographer much any more either.

    GS, thank you. Sometimes over thinking the process can spoil the my appreciation of an image for what it is.

    Kat, thanks girlie!

    Riley, I could go half an hour in your weather, just to top up my vitamin D! Any longer and I would cook though. And become seriously grumpy!

    ReplyDelete
  9. that picture is heaven. *sigh*
    I can understand your love of the darkroom. I prefer film bc digital seems like such a cheat at times. I can manipulate a photograph til it looks nothing like the subject -'perfecting' it to such a fake degree of perfect that it isnt real. Film is much more fun to play with and takes much more skill in my op.

    ReplyDelete
  10. As always Peonies your pictures are gorgeous!

    l-o-v-e it

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks FK!

    And Cassette45, so true. Oh I miss the darkroom...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Such a beautiful image. We must work out some kind of swapping arrangement.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Certainly Maryam, I'll swap you any pictures you like for one small pavilion in Marrakesh... I'm sure you don't need two! We'd even let you visit! How about it? no? oh well, it was worth a shot...

    ReplyDelete
  14. hey there! i love ur blog... lots o' yummy stuff :) i knew i had to pass on the info that i just found a source for the manipulatable sx-70 polaroid film!!! can you believe it!?! rumor has it that its the last run from polaroid & you can get it now from www.freestylephoto.biz how fun right!?! :)

    anyhoo... thanks for sharing all of your fun finds and loves :)

    xo... bradee

    ReplyDelete

play nice.