Olympus OM-2s - Another new camera. :D

I'm well and truly obsessed with photography again.  I picked up yet another camera last week and have been trying to learn how to use it.  While I'm not new to 35mm cameras, I've never used a camera that only has manual focus.  I didn't learn photography on one of the classic cameras like the Pentax K1000 or the Canon AE-1 etc.  I learnt my photography mostly on a Minolta Dynax 500si.  I'm not counting the cameras I used for snap shots before I started learning it in school. :)

I loved my Minolta and I shot hundreds of shots on it.  If I remember correctly, you could turn off auto focus on it but I mostly relied on the autofocus.  I did, however, shoot mostly on manual because that was encouraged in class and I was a serious student. :P

So I went a little crazy. Haha! #camera #film

Lately, I've gone on a bit of a camera buying spree. 😅  I bought five cameras in total. 😅

Lucky, none of them were particularly expensive because I got most of them at really good prices off Carousell. I might end up selling one of them in the future but we'll see.

Lately, I've fallen back in love with film photography, in particular plastic cameras and Lomo.  So I  wanted to get a Holga that shoots 35mm film because I already have one that shoots 120mm.  I actually made a deal for a Holga 135 but realised that actually I got a little confused and made the deal for the wrong Holga.  I actually wanted the Holga 135bc because it has more vignetting which is part of the reason why those who shoot on Holgas shoot on Holgas anyway.  But I didn't want to break a deal because of my own mistake so I bought both cameras in the end.

Expired Film Can Be Cool Too #photography

 

So..... a few weeks ago, I found a roll of exposed film that I had forgotten about. Thing is this film was shot something like 20 to 21 years ago.  Haha! 😅 So by the time I got it processed, the colour dyes have already faded and I got some really funky colours.

I did some cleanup and "developed" it in Photoshop.  After which I made a Black and White version which I feel actually looks quite cool.  There's a lot of grain which is not always desirable but it this case, the grain actually helps to make it look quite romantic and mysterious. 

I'm honestly not sure what film I used.  I'm guessing it's a Kodak film of some sort.  After I got the roll of film back from the lab, the edge code was no longer even visible. I'm also not sure where this roll of film was shot.  I'm guessing that it's on the road trip I made along the California coastline on Highway 1.

There is another shot on the roll which looks like the Bixby Bridge.  I'll work on that shot on another day.

If you wanna check out my other shots on Instagam, you are welcome to.  And I welcome comments and critiques either in the comments section or on IG. 🙂

Statue of Liberty - cleanup #bnw #photography

I've come to realise the importance of storing negatives properly.  I failed to do so in the past because I just assumed that I would not be needing them anymore because I didn't have access to a dark room and still don't.  I once bought a flatbed scanner that can scan negatives but I never got around to using it to its full potential because I was really very busy.

This is when Covid19 helped me.  Although, I think it would have been better if this virus didn't come into the world.  Still, it did give me more time to do things and one of the things I did was finally go through all my old photos, negatives and learnt how to use my Canoscan 8800f.  I also subscribed to Adobe's Photography Plan and finally started to learn how to use Lightroom and Photoshop properly after so many years of wanting to.  I really never needed to use either properly because my work didn't require it and it remained one of the things I have always wanted to do.

Round and Round We Go

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New York City, circa 1996-97, Ilford HP5 Plus, Minolta Dynax 500Si . #shoot_all_the_time #bnw #35mmfilm #bnw_zone #film #minoltadynax500si #minolta #Ilford #IlfordHP5Plus #sgphotographer #streetphotography #bnw_captures #bnw_addicted #bnw_of_our_world #bnw_drama #blacknwhite_perfection #explore_bnw @addicted_to_bnw #analogphotography #filmphotography #bnw_awards #bnw_raw #insta_bnw #big_shotz_bw #bnw_epic #photowall_bw #filmisnotdead #we_believe_in_black

A post shared by kp Photos (@shoot_all_the_time) on Aug 20, 2020 at 2:55am PDT

Its been ages since I've blogged but I'm finally back again.  This isn't the first time I've stopped and started again.  Things happen and life gets in the way. :)

There were many reasons why I stopped blogging for such a long time.  Mainly it was because I started a new job back then which was soooooooooooooooo ridiculously busy and draining that it finally made me reassess everything about my life and I made some very important decisions.