Underwater housing for the LOMO-LCW

Just got my first roll of film back shot with this housing made for the LOMO LCA and LCW series. Was such a good investment I cant imagine travelling with out it. Check out some of the shots or you can see the rest of the roll here

Polaroid love

One of my Polaroids I shot a few summers ago is currently featured in the new Nokia Campaign. Just thought I'd share the polaroid love with you all...Remember as long as we keep shooting pack 600 it will continue being produced!

Double exposing slide film....

Boy oh boy do i love my new LOMO... it makes shooting half frames, full frames and double exposing neg's so gosh darn easy, its like a ridiculously fun walk in the park :)

I went to versailles in paris the other week, former home of King Louis and Marie Antoinette... good god did they ever like to coat things in gold! The palace and gardens were soooooo alarmingly huge, even with a wide angel lens I couldn't hope to fit half of the palace itself into a frame... so i decided I would do some experimenting with double exposing my negative... only thing is i forgot to turn the half frame function off so i ended up triple exposing most shots!

I had no idea how the roll of film was going to turn out which is one of the things i love most about shooting film! the suspense! Check out the results above and the rest of the roll here. Love to know your experiences with double exposing negs, post links and/or comments below...

Finally Something to post about...

Its been a long time since I have written a blog post.... I had a bit of time off after dad died and then the boyfriend and i hit the road on our 365 day around the world adventure which you can read about here on my website... I have been shooting film since we left on my trusty LOMO LC-W so I finally have something to post about. These photos were taken in Spain where my dad lived for almost 10 years using 35mm 400 ISO Kodachrome film and cross processed... I hope you love them as much as i do.

35mm Gold

I just can't understand people who don't dig the sensation of sand between their toes... you know the type - always with the "Oh I love the beach I just hate sand" I've got news for you people they are one and the same. Embrace.

I shot the above on my new pride and joy - a Olympus Trip

My grandmothers house

None of the Polaroids above are particularly ground breaking but words can not begin to describe how much they mean to me. Having moved a lot as a kid my Nonna & Nonno's house was a rare constant in our lives. As a child it was this big dusty mansion with a dining room that appeared (to the 4 year old version of me) to be the size of a grand ballroom in Napoleon III's apartment at the Louvre. In my teens it was a place to avoid, I mean really who wants to hang out with their grandparents at 16.

As I reached my early 20's I truly began to appreciate them for not only the wonderful grandparents they were but for the amazing lives they had lead. Every time I had money to spare I would fly from Sydney to Torquay just to spend the weekend with them, hearing their stories and just generally breathing it all in.

It was one of those trips in my late 20s when I took these photos. I read somewhere that a grandparent is a child's first best friend and when my Nonno died when I was 25 it made me realise how little time we actually have on this earth with the people we love and while digital files get lost or accidentally deleted, and technology changes with time a Polaroid lasts for ever and these are very dear to me... the grand ballroom, the crazy gold embossed wallpaper, my Nonno's 'dunny' in the garage, the scary door of the back shed all little pieces of them captured beautifully in a 3¼" × 4¼ inch frame.

Olympus trip 35 - first roll

I shot this roll of film about 3 or 4 months ago and only just had it developed this week. I cant even remember what slide film I used (fujichrome perhaps as it has a tendency to come out all red like) It was the first roll i burned through with my Olympus trip so I was sure to mix shit up a bit just to see how she handled. I shot outside, inside, up and down... with flash and with out and the results of course are mixed... this is in large part to the film I was using but the burnt edges are all her (and when I say her i mean the camera) and I was pretty stoked with most of the shots.

A sample above for you, check out more here

where did all the time go?

Life has gotten away from me this year... I have so much to do and so little time to do it in. I am constantly surrounded by amazing creative's making things happen for themselves...

In the past 2 years I have started and now run two successful businesses (and when I say successful I mean I no longer have to work full time logging 8 hours a day behind someon elses desk making someone else's money) I created and have written for this blog for pushing three years now, I have developed (and pulled off) global reaching photographic projects (all for the love of film mind you) and production designed not 1, not 2, not even 3 but 4 Australian films and am about to embark on my 5th and 6th but I still find myself sitting here, alone in my office at 1am with a glass of red wine feeling like I need to do more....One thing is for sure, the social commentators were right... us Gen Y'ers are really fucked up - you know in a overachieving totally endearing kinda way.... I swear we'll all be burnt out by the time we are 35 (and that's not that far away)

I miss my Polaroid camera... you feel like you can conquer the world with that thing in your hand... So with that in mind here is one of my all time favourite photos... Enjoy...

I'm miles from where you are...

I find the map and draw a straight line, over rivers, farms and state lines. The distance from here to where you''d be is only finger-lengths that I see....

secure the cat

I love nice people, especially really tall ones like Big Dav here who has a sneaky little blog called Secure The Cat (and I've met this cat he speaks of, 'securing' it ain't easy - Archie don't like people much) Regardless this here blog is filled with pretty bloody beautiful double exposure photos immortalised forever on the glory that is 35mm film.

Check em out above and see more here.

Shameless cross promoting...

What can I say I'm the devil... Only one of the two projects I am about to mention has anything to do with the fine art of analogue photography however I have my fingers in many pies and I thought I might give 2 of them a quick mention.

First up I just got some new designs back from my printer and posted them to daisyandjack.com.au ( a little stationary boutique I call my own) They are inspired by the beautiful typography of a 1950s bus roll and can be found here.

Next up I am making some changes to the course I was developing to teach kids photography at a mission in Mexico this year.... Keep your eyes peeled here for more details.

The bright lights of summer

We are only 1 day into day light savings and already I miss the sunshine and happy days that were summer. I am going to start carrying around my Golden Half camera again just to keep me happy.

I have been shooting a lot of 35mm film recently... It aint cheap but it aint as pricey as polaroid film either. To check out more of my photos click here

kodachrome toronto

Kodachrome toronto 1935 - 2010 is a nifty little research project. It invites photographers to add their Kodachrome slides to this flickr pool help create a shared composite of the city.

This project’s mandate is to identify and locate all known archives — both public and private — of photos and home movies made using Kodachrome film media.

To find out more about the project please click here

Development Vs developing?

Man I have a shit load of film I need to developed, I just spent a week in spain for my dear old dads funeral and while I cant remember half of it I know I had a camera in my hand most of the time...

3 weeks and 3 days goes by so fast... R.I.P dad

Ok so big apologies for the lack of blogging this month (ok ok this year) March 1 rolled around and I had a good long look at myself in the mirror and muttered something along the lines of 'Sophie your blogging efforts have been nothing short of hopeless - Sought your shit out' and for 4 days I did just that, I blogged every evening for 4 days straight I was back on a roll again people and life was good...

Then on March 10 my dad died. It was very unexpected. He was happy and healthy and living in spain... I was due to visit him in July, something we have both been looking fwd to for a long time.

Its now been 3 weeks and 3 days since I got the phone call that literally changed my life, shifted my entire centre and while its been tough I know my dad more than anyone would want me to get back on the writing band wagon. He was right into all things tech. We had a Mac computer in 1985, long before they became all trendy and cool. The screen was black the writing was green and at age 3 I would sit on his lap and he would let me press the enter button. We were the first family on our street to get the internet and my dad had me on the waiting list for a ipod 9 months before the first one hit australian stores.

He is the one who made me get facebook, then google chat and skpe, hell he even tweeted 9 minutes (yes minutes) before he died and if it wasnt for him I wouldnt know half of what I do about computers (and life for that matter)

So with that in mind, dad - this ones for you. All my love. Soph x

Hey You! Penis!

Yep... attention grabbing headline isnt it! Penis! kind of just catches your eye dont it!

I have been leaving cameras tied to trees and benches for years! I ask people to take a photo - to think outside the square and be creative so I'm almost surprised it has taken 3 years for me to get my first photo of a penis... sure people have taken photos of there backsides before, maybe even stuck the odd finger up (at the camera not the arse) but never before has someone taken a photo of their shall we say 'not so privates'... who ever you are random stranger from falls festival - your dick is now online for the world to see!

Oh and It just so happens there are 4 other rolls of perfectly PG and perfectly wonderful photos taken by complete random strangers online too, like the festival fairy above. Click here to be taken straight to the 2010/2011 falls festival albums... oh and if you are under the age of 15, are not accompanied by a adult perhaps close your eyes when you get half way through camera 9!

Voigtlander VITO - cross processed

So I have been doing a bit of research lately into how different speeds and brands of slide film turn out after being cross processed... Ill proccess the results in a few days but i think its safe to say Fujuichrome 100-400 speed film comes out red :)

I have just posted a whole new bunch of 35mm shots and subsequently deleted all of the digital shots on my website www.killallartists.com.au.... I dont know why, It just never seems right having them up there next to my 35mm film shots... Im constantly fighting the urge to photoshop them to make them look like film... you know how it goes, slight saturation, bit of a grain, burn around the edges... but what would be the point? Its not real... Its not honest... and it never quite works out the way it should... but thats whats so great about film... its not calculated, you cant plan to have a frame come out a certain way... it just does and thats why I love it and all its imperfections so much.

YEN MAGAZINE

As I mentioned earlier YEN Magazine featured the Hey You! Say Cheese Project in this months issue! Its sure to be gone from the news stands in the next week or so to make way for what is sure to be another fabulous issue so if you haven't picked up a copy from your local newsagent drop what your doing and run run run before you miss out!

Hey You! Say Cheese! goes to falls festival

I have lived in Sydney for 10 years and for the better part of those 10 years I have bought in each new year at Falls Music & Arts Festival in Lorne, Victoria... Far far away from the crowds of Sydney I am surrounded instead by beautiful trees, great music and most importantly good people. I have been to many of Australia’s bigger festivals and it is Falls and Falls alone that delivers year on year.

Its a family run festival on a family owned farm and each year feels like everyone is simply ‘coming home for christmas’. 2010/11 would of been my 7th Falls festival, however I had to attend a friends wedding on Lord Howe Island, Alas at falls I was not... That didn’t stop me from sending a few cameras down on behalf of the Hey You! Say Cheese! Disposable Camera Project to capture every beautiful random moment as it happened by my humble sign asking random strangers to stop and take a photo...

Click here to check out the results...

Shorpy shot of the day

I would like to kick off a new segment for this blog called the 'Shorpy shot of the day'! Shorpy is a online resource where (once you have signed up for a FREE account) you can upload old photos to share with its large web based community. Of particular interest to everyone are photos from the 1900's to 1940's and after spending a good few hours cruising through the site I am here to tell you there is plenty to see.

Two of my particular faves above are from the colorized section and are titled "Mr magazine, 1908' and 'Stars and stripes 1915' My my how times have changed! I hope you enjoy this little nod to the past as much as i have and stay tuned for regular Shorpy shots of the day... or if you simply cant wait head here to check the rest out yourself.