Through the Viewfinder Tutorial

 

The first time I tried TtV (Through The Viewfinder), it  I didn't know other people were doing it and there was a better way to do it and your pictures came out looking like amazing old-timey square slides!

So, I did some research and experimented a whole lot. And this is what I found!

So, basically, if you shoot pictures through the viewfinder of a Twin Lens Reflex camera with your SLR camera, they turn out looking awesome. But without the help of a cardboard tube, some ductape, and a few tips they may not turn out as awesome as you may want. Here is what you need:

-An old TLR camera. The older and dirtier, the better, in my opinion. My TLRs are pretty beat up and the lenses are pretty dirty around the edges. But this just adds some really cool and unique vignetting, light leaks, distortion and dust.

-A container of Pringles. Eat all the Pringles, or feed them to your kids (which is what I did.... allergic to Pringles :( ).

-Ductape. Any color is fine, but black is classy, of course.

-A lens hood that will fit your camera.

***

Step 1: Once your pringles are gone, cut off the bottom of the container and wipe out the inside with a dry paper towel. 

2. Then ductape the container to your lens hood. You'll have something like picture No. 2. 

3. Attach your super-fancy new pringle-lens-hood to your camera and you're ready!

  

4. Open up your TRL camera viewfinder and place your PLH (lens hood) over it.

5.Set your camera to Macro and hold the whole contraption from the bottom of the the TLR camera to take pictures.

6. Don't panic when you end up with a picture like the one above. You just need to crop it and play with the exposure a bit. TtV for the winnnnnnn!!!!!!

***

Tips...

- For outdoor pictures set the aperture at 2.0, or your pictures will turn out WHITE and terrible.

- Don't worry if they are a bit over or underexposed. You can fix this in editing.

- Use your flash, especially if it's an outdoor photo and sunny. I don't know why this works, but it works like a charm for me!

- Use Picmonkey.com for editing. They allow you to straighten your photo and lighten it up if you need to. Also, very important... You can set the crop tool to "square" and play with it just a bit. I don't have photoshop, and I find Picmonkey is pretty much all I need. It's super easy to use.

-You can find pretty cheap TLR cameras on Ebay and Shopgoodwill.com

-Play around with it! I know there are things I haven't discovered yet and ways to use TtV that make it even more rad.

Burial Hill

Yesterday the bug and I went to Burial Hill in Plymouth, MA. I'd actually never been here even though I work 2 seconds down the street. Yay for hometown adventures! It was really pretty cool. Lots of signage to let you know where all the historically cool stuff was. And an aaaaamazing view of the waterfront, with benches for hanging out and watching the sunset!

We went to the Courthouse museum after that (which has free admission all of the time!), and learned a bit more about the fantastic history of our town! One teensy bit of interesting history- Mick Jagger visited the Courthouse Museum in 1985! They, of course, framed the page of the guest book he signed and display it proudly along side the firetruck from the 1700s and the hearse from the early 1800s.

Bugs started getting weird after our tour of the graveyard (as seen in pic no.4).... so, I think our next trip will be to the zoo or something..... :)

Finally Feels Like Fall!

 

 

Dress: Thrifted

Cardigan: Style and Co.

Belt: Walmart

Necklace: Etsy

Tights: Target

Knee Socks: Kohls

Boots: Amazon

Monadnock

Sunday was a hiking adventure! Besties, Aly, Candace and I (And Candace's 5 year-old, Jadyn) took a two hour trip to NH to climb Mount Manadnock. It was quite a lot of rock-climbing/bouldering, rather than just hiking, which I love (even though I was dying for most of it.), and the view was amazing. Especially now that fall is beginning to pop in NH!
Henry David Thoreau visited this mountain a bunch, and he is regarded as having written one of the first serious naturalist inventories of the mountain, which I was totally jazzed to find out. Thoreau is pretty high on my list of writers/naturalists. If he were still alive, he might have even bumped Tom Waits out of the No. 1 spot on my celebrity crush list.

Tea and Dirt

Dress: Target

Cardigan: J. Crew

Tights: Dots

Shoes: DSW

Fragrances: Ebay

Three outfit posts in a row! I'm beginning to impress myself. New things coming, I promise! I've been working on my shops and teaching my baby friends to read and write, I've had very little time to take pictures of what I'm doing. This week, however, I'm making it my goal to bring my camera everywhere I go!

Wet Garden

Ring: Market Darling

Sweater: Merona

Dress: Thrifted

Shoes: Charlotte Russe

Fragrance: Ebay

You've Got To Lie to Me, Baby.

Please excuse my horribly messy fabric shelves! I am working on somehow making them look nice while still being able to find things. One of these days I'm going to have to do a shelf- introduction. I love my Ikea shelves! I had a few friends over not long ago and one of them commented that this room is a "Gwenivere Museum". I try to make my spaces sort of look like a museum of oddities/natural history/rad things, so, that was quite a compliment!

Beanie- F21
Top- Target
Skirt- Thrifted
Sweater- Thrifted
Shoes- Tobi
Tom Waits Necklace- Etsy

Music Tuesday

*Songs I Am Slightly Ashamed to Admit I Listen to Over and Over..... *

*Catchy

*Catchier

*Wicked Catchy

Sunday Bits

I'm coming down with something :(
So, I spent the day watching movies and eating rice and playing with crafty things. Here's a bit of my Sunday.
1. Feeling icky, testing my new light set-up.

2. One of the lights I got recently.

3. Printed out all the coupons I could carry!! 50% off anything at Mikes this week!

4. Screen printing trial using an embroidery hoop, nylons, and modpodge (more on this later).

5. My office is coming along! I've been trying to spruce it up. I think the recycled paper banner helps.

6. The making of the banner, and a few new canvas things!

7. Crayola display. Isn't it happy?