Hello Florida....

The boyfriend and I are planning a year long trip around the world, sure we wont be leaving until early next year, and we have the whole world to explore before we even hit America (the last stop of our trip where we are hoping to stay and work) But when i stumble across photos like the one above I want to jump on the next plane over there... I cant wait another second!

The history, the architecture its all just mind blowing... I know I know its no La Sagrada Familia, but I'm a huge fan of anything that came out of the 20's and Art Deco is my kind of style...

I hope Florida knows how good they have it with pretty buildings like this one in West Palm Beach to take photos of when ever they gosh darn please!

A few of mine...

I get so carried away blogging about other peoples photos I often run out of time to scan and post my own work! Here's a few of my faves from a recent trip to Asia.... man i miss being on the road... nothing to do but spend your days exploring with a camera in your hand... constantly meeting new people, discovering new places and creating new memories - It pains me to think i wont be travelling anywhere this year (besides a spot of island hopping off the east coast around xmas)

How about you travelled anywhere interesting lately? Don't be shy, show us your photos :)

A rare polaroid find...

Last week I wrote about special edition Polaroids, saying Ive only ever seen the same 5 or 6 models floating around, and wouldn't you know it tonight Ive stumbled across another. The Spirit 600 Amoco Blue! Seems the 80s wasnt a time to print your business names on pens... it was cooler to produce a limited edition polaroid instead... who needs a business card when you have one of these babies anyway!? Bit of a fan of blue? You can bid on this bad boy right here if your quick.

Golden Hour

You know the time of day - sometime after 5 and before the sun has gone to bed around 630. I like to call it the golden hour and its by far my favorite time of day to take photos... the light, is...well... golden! there is no better way to describe it. I stumbled across the photo above on a blog called I make films... pretty fine example of a pretty great time of day if you ask me!

Somewhere Near Tapachula

54 kids, 37 surfboards, two wonderful human beings and 1 beautiful country... a inspirational film you just cant miss.

Click here for Aussie tour dates, America, kick and scream until it comes to you!

Historic Polaroid collection up for sale

This just in from New York, More than 1,200 photographs from Polaroid's historic collection, by some of the 20th century's most celebrated and freakn awesome artists, will be auctioned in New York City this summer.

They are estimated to bring a whopping $7.5 million to $11.5 million at Sotheby's come June 21-22 - hard to believe anyone has that much cash floating about given these tough economic times we all be living in these days!

Word on the mean streets is about 70 percent of the images are Polaroid prints including 400 by non other than Ansel Adams... the master of photography himself! Good lord what I wouldn't do to get my grubby little mittens on one of the prints! shame i don't have a lazy few hundred thousand green backs stashed under my mattress because a original Ansel Polaroid would look rather lovely in my living room!

The collection belonged to Edward land, founder of this little thing we like to call a Polaroid, Some big bad bankruptcy court in Minnesota is forcing Polaroid to sell the collection to pay off creditors.

Again with Ryan

I know I know, Ive blogged about Ryan Tatar here, here and here (not to mention here and here)- and if he were you average human being, nay your average photographer you'd probably be sick to death of him by now... lucky for you all his photos are constantly evolving and refreshing pieces of emulsion and I for one never get sick of seeing what he is up to next... another pearler above - see more here.

Daily dose of ocean

I don't know why people call it 9 to 5. Most of us are out the door at 7 set to embark on our work day, and don't usually roll through the door till about the same time in the pm.... that's 12 hours of not being at the beach a day... depressing ain't it.

Thanks god for lucky sons of bitches such as Matty J, doing it tough day in day out bring a taste of salt water to our daily grind. Check out two of his shots above, a little out of the norm for the ocean based photographer who surprises us every now and then with a polagraphic treat.

Sign up for the sea life here

Everybody loves a lomo

I know I love my lomo, I love it so much I broke it, and when i say love i mean took it to Asia and let it bang around in my backpack so much the winding spool cracked and now it don't work so well.

Needless to say i was dizzy with envy when i received these shots above from fellow lomo nerd Matthew Kovacs who is currently traveling the world taking beautiful pictures! Stay tuned for a link to more of his amazing compositions. Man I'm jealous! I tell you the only thing keeping me sane is that will be me next year and ill be taking better care of my lomo this time, dont you worry about that!

Like pretty pictures?

Here's one. I found it here.

Polaroid 600 SE

Pretty serious piece of camera for a pretty serious photographer, find out more about the wonder that is this fine example of engineering and see some of the owners results here. Would love to get my hands on one of these....

Polaroid Prints Photo Album

I'm telling you people its tough going trying to find a decent home for your Polaroids these days! They sell some pretty dodgy looking albums on eBay and if you can handle the 6 weeks they take to arrive from Singapore... currently I'm using the Bakelite and plastic containers that used to hold floppy disks (remember those) in the early 90's! Not the big square ones but the little square ones... you know.... they were basically what CDs were to vinyl. smaller but with much the same purpose.

This little plastic case of mine does the job nicely but Its no where near as pretty as the paper albums above! Yeah Yeah they only hold 10 Polaroids, but what a great gift idea... or way to keep miniature volumes of your Polaroid adventures!

They are designed and printed by a lass called Lindsey who was inspired by a little paper photo album she found at an antique store! Keen to get your mittens on some, she sells them through her Etsy store here

Inspiration

Everybody loves a good decorating tip, no use letting your polaroids collect dust in a shoebox somewhere right? Found here on Flickr

Rare Polaroids....

I don't know about you but my camera collection is getting a little out of hand. Ive got some random cameras scattered amongst my book shelves that range from Eastman Kodak circa 1908 right through to Polaroid in 1980...

Two of my favorite models would have to be the swingers from the 60s and the SX70s from the 70s but still I cant go past the bright and wacky joy of the special editions from the 1980s and even 90s (yes that was 20 years ago now)... I thought I was doing OK with my red cool cam, taz loony toon Polaroid, job pro and amigo 610 until i came across this guy who has over 930 Polaroid cameras in his collection!

While I don't ever think I'll obtain that many, as my boyfriend would most likely leave me, I am still constantly on the hunt for another weirdly wonderful and wonderfully weird Polaroid for my collection, Ive come across a McDonald's Polaroid before but they are just so expensive, hows a girl supposed to eat AND feed her Polaroid addiction i ask you?

The main models that seem to be out there for sale are of the barbie, cool cam variety - hell I've even seen a clear one once, I'm talking totally transparent, it was a glorious thing of beauty. I would love to hear about any crazy Polaroid models you have come across in your travels...

Oh and if you are looking to add to your own collection there are some great ones going on EBay here, here, here and here!

Nat Friedman

Who the f**k is Nat Friedman? Well I'm not actually sure to be honest, but I love his work. All i did was google disposable camera projects in a desperate bid to find something to blog about and his (or her) name kept popping up... Running out of options I clicked through to find this blog post.

Seems Nat, whom ever he/she is spent a little time in Rio this past January, Nat and his/her friends were presented with a opportunity to tour the slums built up on the hillsides that surround the city, also called favelas they are intricate and crowded places that many travellers would be wary of entering. The best-known favela in Rio is Cidade de Deus, which I have blogged about here before as its where the amazing City of God movie was set.

Nat was amazed at how fascinated the towns people were with the LCD screen on his/her camera... wanting to give something back they returned to town to buy as many disposable cameras as they could and handed them out in the slums the next day. Out of 32 cameras they were given 26 back and developed the shots and shared them with the young armature photographers, most of which had never even picked up a camera.

The shots are truly amazing, not to mention humbling, you can see a few of the results above but be sure to check out the rest of the photos here, read the whole story then scroll to the bottom for gallery's

Check out what pure joy looks like

The latest from the wonderful and the lovely Ryan Tatar

A great place to buy Polaroid film

I know a dude who teams up with some mates and orders bulk of these beauties above to take some of the sting out of the US dollar and shipping to Australia... Not a bad idea in these harsh economic times if you ask me.

You can order all kinds of film here... go slow on your credit card now its a little too easy to get carried away!

The photo above is thanks to cheap plastic goodness

Guns dont shoot people I shoot people

If you like your necklaces a little different (and you should, mass produced same same as everyone not so one of a kind items are as boring as bat shit) then this ones for you. Found here on etsy....

Palm Tree's are cool...

And so is cheap plastic goodness... Leandro is not quite sure why he finds palm tree's so interesting to photograph?!? They are just so dreamy and wonderful I myself cant resist a good palm tree Polaroid when I see one!

Check out some more palm tree love here on his site... How about you? Taken any wonderful photos of palm trees lately?

A million little pictures...

A million little pictures is a project currently being run by the good people over at art house co-op. Photographers from all over the world will attempt to create an accurate representation of the world in 2010. Participation is easy. All you need is a camera (digital or film but lets face it film would be infinatly cooler) and you are good to go.

You can sign up to contribute to this wicked little project here and can pretty much start uploading right away.... your photos will be used to create a massive quilt/mural of the world as it is in 2010... Your photo/s (everyone involved will have at least 1 up) shall be included in the exhibition held on July 9th, 2010 at Brooklyn Art Library.. Pretty nifty huh!

Contax T2

Ive been chatting to a mate recently about the Contax T2, he is somewhat interested in buying one and when you come across shots like the one above here on Flickr, its easy to see why! Highly regarded as one of the awesomest compact 35mm's doing the rounds and is arguably the only good thing to come out of the 80's!

You can read (and see) more of and about these awesome camera's here, here and here!

Unfolding the mystery that is Vivian Maier

Last week I blogged about the amazing Vivian Maier here.... the short version to a long story is she is a un unknown photographer from the 50s who's works would of been lost to the world if a man named John hadn't purchased a box of her photos at a auction one random day. Besides the fact her photos are amazing in a Max Duapin kinda way she is a utter mystery to all and every time a precious detail emerges about this woman's life you cant help but yearn for more.

Check out another of her raw, hard gritty captures of everyday life above (she really seemed to love old ladies in expensive furr's) and read another piece of the puzzle here...

Wearable polaroid

I just came across some cool wearable Polaroid art (thanks rach) If you love Polaroids as much as i do I highly recommend you check this site out. Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Vivian Maier, A marvel and a mystery

John Maloof stumbled across a box of dusty old negatives at a antique auction on what must of seemed like any normal Saturday, little did he know the box contained some truly amazing photos of Chicago from the 50s and 60s, some photos that have been kept in the dark for far too long, now, as he slowly scans and uploads them onto the blog he created for Vivian's catalogue of work her own story slowly starts to unravel...

It took him days to look through all of her work and even inspired him to pick up a camera and start shooting for himself. John also bought her same camera and took to the same streets soon to realize how difficult it was to make images of her caliber. John says "I discovered the eye she had for photography through my own practice. Needless to say, I am attached to her work"

As for Vivian herself and her photos here is what John has uncovered thus far....

The auction house acquired her belongings from her storage locker that was sold off due to delinquent payments. After some researching John figured out that Central Camera (110 yr old camera shop in Chicago) had encountered Vivian from time to time when she would purchase film. From what they knew of her, she was standoffish but outspoken at the same time. She lived in the Rogers Park neighborhood, in Chicago.

John has about 30-40,000 negatives in the collection, about 15,000 of these are still in rolls, undeveloped from the 1960's-1970's. John has been successfully developing these rolls with about 600 yet to develop.

Sadly John owned the photos for a year before he decided to google this amazing woman and track her down. He was shocked to find she passed away just a week before his search began leaving a lot of question unanswered forever.... I hope you enjoy her photos as much as i have, Ive placed a small sample above, you can find the rest of her collection, growing by the day thanks to Johns dedication to this project here on blogger.

Suggestion box

So what camera are you using these days? digging any particular kind of film? crushing on some kind of wonderful new photographer you cant believe youve never heard of until now? Found a rad place to pick up expired Polaroid film? Don't be shy... tell me all about it.... that's why god, i mean blogger, invented comment boxes!

Dream destination

We all have that one picture perfect postcard moment in our minds, that dot on the map you just have to get to and take a photo of before you die, for me it was the pyramids, and having ticked that off my list back in 08 Ive now moved on to the Grand Canyon, for Tyron Hug, its the Vegas Sign... and Greenwich Village...and down town Chicago... Well anywhere in America really!

Check out more of the dudes beautiful travel photos as he dashes across America here! Where is it in the world you want to take your photo?