Photokina 2012

I know this post is about 3 weeks overdue but hey, better late than never! This photokina post isn't going to tell you about all the latest gadgets from the biggest companies (Canon, Nikon etc) but it will focus on the things that made me happiest at the trade show in Cologne, Germany.

First stop was Lomography, unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to sign up for the DIY La Sardinia workshop where they were giving away free cameras (I can't be too greedy, I do already have one , below) but was very happy to have a 1 on 1 tutorial with a Lomokino camera (shown above) and be able to play around with all the fun props they had to go with their circus theme. 

Next stop was up the stairs to Samsung and although I've never really liked their cameras I did really like all their displays- breakdancers, waterfalls and lego boats! We also stood in line for 45 minutes to get a photo on a vespa printed on a mug for free but the camera they were using was having problems connecting to wifi and the in camera editing looked very slow going anyway so we abandoned it.

Sony had lots of models to try out their cameras on

The Impossible project was doing demonstrations of their latest technology basically being able to use and Iphone to take a picture, put it on their device and make it an instant polaroid like picture. I'm still not sure how I feel about this- Glad that it opens up more ways for people to use analogue technology but I always loved the feeling of that a Polaroid is like a negative, there is only one of them. 

We also stood in line for about an hour to get these photographs taken of us by photographer Walter M Rammler for a project faces@photokina on a hassleblad camera then printed on an Epson fine art printer. 

I used a CeWe instant print machine to make these glossy prints and was surprised with actually how nice they came out.

On the opposite end of the scale, Polaroids new digital instant camera disappointed me, with a much smaller amount of megapixels than all cameras on the market and poor printing quality, I feel like this machine could have been made so much better had a little more time and money gone into it. (See printed example of me using one above)

And lastly, my next big purchase is going to be an Epson scanner so while I was chatting to the reps about them I got this print done on one of their printers, and I was again surprised at the quality it came out with. Maybe my 'anything printed not in a lab on wet lab paper is crap' mentality was slightly changed. Maybe. 

Mothers day matching Polaroids

I started this series back in September 2009 and it still continues, this is what I'm saving my very last rolls of real Polaroid film for. Standing in each of my parents footsteps when they were my age in various places in Europe and the UK

Chicago visit to see Vivian Maier

I was talking about the visit to Chicago awhile ago on the blog and on Facebook and I have been really slow with getting these photos up, even on my Lomography page. The reason? Most of these Lomographs are a little blurry on my part, I should have taken a faster film because of the overcast weather and shooting inside, but the lab I took them to, which wasn't my normal lab must have had problems with their machine and I have scratches, dust, spots and development splotches all over the negatives, which in most cases makes them look like they have another layer of blurriness over them but some I think it helps them to look even more like they were taken in the 60's when Vivian Maier was taking photos in Chicago, which was the reason we were going to Chicago to see her first exhibition and why I decided to not take a digital camera. Even though some of them aren't great, this is the kind of photography I love, going to a place I haven't been before and shooting a series.

Taking a photo of my road trip buddy Tyler through one of Vivian Maiers viewfinders.

Check out the development splotches in the photo above!

Have you ever had a roll of film ruined by a lab?

Window Shopping

Another series that I developed along the way while traveling was of shop windows. There were a few reasons I think which drew me to taking photos of them. As a hostel dwelling traveller taking photos of some of the interesting (and in most cases expensive and impractical to carry with you) products in shop front windows is as close as I was ever going to get to them. Also in most cases told a story of where or when you were looking at them, either in the display or in the reflection of the window. I did a series around a year ago which was all about "Double takes" and had one of these natural double exposures included in it.