Its been a fun week with my cameras. I have forced myself to get outside and shoot with my pack camera for Polaroid Week. These are the cameras you see often as ‘props’ the pop out with accordion like bellows and smell like breaking down plastic. I just know they can’t be the healthiest thing to handle.

It was really cool to start out Polaroid Week as a featured artist on Snap It See It, a site that is dedicated to preserving the art of film photography specifically instant photography. I had the pleasure of meeting one of the contributors at SISI, Melissa Mercado (she’s standing next to me) on my trip to NYC in April. I immediately fell right in sync with her style of shooting, she is really one of the nicest people I have met. I’m so glad she decided to jump right in to our informal polawalk that day, I always tell people who want to get in to photography (film or digital) to find like minded people and go walk around with your cameras together. You never know what it will lead to! I have to think I wouldn’t have been featured if I had not met my new friends, Melissa, Marcelo and Nancy that day.

Everyday, except Friday I shot something new.

Monday I grabbed my Automatic 100 and found there was film in from who knows when, I think 2012. I went out in my backyard and fired off some test shots. I love this camera, it came with a wind timer on the strap so you don’t have to count to yourself. The peel apart instant film has a range of development times, today was about 90 seconds.

The final picture. Super happy with the blue shadows.

Strangely enough this photo was ‘explored’ on Flickr which is similar to the popular page on Instagram and yet no one could tell you how and why other than it worked with the current algorithm used to compute its popularity. I attribute the Polaroid week pool to its getting on the explored list, It was kinda shocking to see this photo had over 10K views and held the spot of #10 out of 500 for a few days. The next morning it was up to 23K views. Crazy.

The next day after work I stopped by the Orange Circle, a roundabout where lots of photographers go to wander the historic district and look for cameras in the basements of the antique stores, which I did and I found a couple gems. I’m going to give them away at Christmas time 😀 

Wind was proving to be a challenge to find a save place to let the photos dry. When you peel them they are goopy with developer. I usually carry dried out baby wipes and scissors to clean them up, Save your film box, its a handy photo carrier. 

The next day I drove to a nearby park, This isn’t just any park its a 117 year old park filled with towering oak trees and wild peacocks. I stalked a peacock for awhile trying to get him to step in a patch of sunlight but I don’t know if I got him. I’ll find out when the film comes back in Week 45.

This old film is proven to be quite teal itself.

Next day it was black and white (after my 360 Land camera ATE a pack of color film) That’s the thing about these cameras, they break. A lot. So now I have two cameras that are in need of a trip to the camera doc.

You can see all the photos in my 2014 Polaweek Flickr Album

Friday … burn….. out. I shared a few scans from photos I took here >> Palm Spring Week 6 but I don’t think I shot anything new. I needed to spend some time doing anything other than shooting. Like make a phone call or dinner. Hard for me to find the balance especially during weeks like these.

One of my all time favorite Instax Wide shots.

I got a couple rolls back from theFINDlab from Week 41 it has been determined that a) I dont like pink clouds (theFind+Portra160 = pink everything) and b) I am an Ektra girl. Although I just shot Provia on Sunday and we’ll see if that Fuji film fits me or not.

Comparing my dad’s slide film to current day Ektra… Have I mentioned how happy I am to be shooting film. That’s me and my sister on the left.

Saturday my sister resumed her annual Halloween party after a couple years on hiatus. I could not think of anything so I went on Amazon and peiced together a costume. Super easy. 10 items. (see list below)

1.Old Shanghai Kimono Robe, 2.China Girl Wig (comes with sticks),3. wig cap,4. Tabi Socks,5. Japanese Sandals,6. Loreal Perfecting Base (primer) 7. Mehron Cream Makeup Stick (Alabaster), 8. Baby Powder (to set makeup), 9. Rimmel Lipstick by Kate in Matte Red, NYX red lip liner,10. red eyeshadow (you set your lipstick with this too),

And this is me trying on my first kimono.brought to us by a foreign exchange student. He gave my mom the fan I am holding above. 😀

 They made perfect costumes.

Sunday I had a session with a long time friend and her daughters. I can’t believe I have known her girls since they were in diapers. Her oldest (holding the Polaroid) is the same age as Super B, we lived just a couple streets over and did a lot together with our kids.

When she recently was crowned homecoming queen I couldn’t help but feel a proud. It makes me so happy to see kids I knew as babies blossom into extraordinary young adults. I had a lot of fun coaxing these two into putting down their phones down long enough to get a couple great shots.

Here’s a photo from two different perspectives:

I really love this part, sitting down to see what was shot that day.

Unfortunately tomorrow starts another week and Halloween is almost here so I’m not sure how I am going to get it all done, probably on a diet of candy corn and beer I suspect. Either way it will all get done. Do you do anything special to prep for Halloween? Oh I know a question for you, how many of you carve your pumpkins early? Me? I’m carving up until the first trick or treater. But then again I do crazy pumpkins remember last year?

Think Breaking Bad.