Leaf Parade

I am so excited about these guys!!! These are some of the leaves I found on my hike the other day. I scanned them and yesterday ordered GIGANTIC prints of them (I thought they'd be in by now, but nothing yet. I'm getting WICKED antsy!). Aren't they beautiful though? I love that you can see each one's wonky details. I can't wait to see how the prints turn out. Depending on the level of awesome, I may put them up in my Etsy shop as prints, we shall see!

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..... :)

Jenney Grist Mill

HOLGA came in!! The Bugs and I went out first thing and used up an entire roll of film in an hour, I was so excited! These are not the photos I took with the new camera, that will take a bit, as I had to send them off to get them developed... turns out- getting 35mm film processed these days takes FOREVER and costs a bunch. I think maybe because they send it out via covered wagon, along the Oregon trail, and if nobody gets Cholera or Diphtheria well,..... you might get your pictures in 5 months.

I hadn't realized 35mm was so old fashioned.

I think my head might explode if I seriously have to wait a week.

I could die before I ever see my photos.



anyway....

Wednesday

Here are some snapshots of our Wednesday!

Captain Vinny!

Hidey Buddyface...

Jelly Vampirate (That is what he calls himself. For reals.)

Lunch (And I'm going to post a recipe for it this weekend, as it was magical :)!

Flo's Clam Shack (Middletown, RI) is still not open for the season!!

Nails!!!

Bitty Wormy...

"The Pirates" screening. It was amazing, AND we were the only people in the theater. Which was great because we made a racket and weasled in some super crunchy snacks... (The movie was fantastic and everyone should see it. In 3D. You will not regret it.)