Film Fridays - Los Angeles Toy Camera Wedding Photography

So along with the toy camera photography I've been doing for fun, I'm also hoping to incorporate it more with the digital photography I do for portraits and weddings. I recently photographed a stylized wedding shoot with my friend Emily of Grandes Fetes and our awesome already-married friends modeled for us. For the most part, the digital photos show off Emily's amazing design better than the toy camera shots did, so we're both excited to debut those soon. In the meantime, I really love this backlit shot of Brett and Trina in front of a window. It's a little dark and grainy, a little out of focus, and still has a lot of character, which is exactly what I love about toy cameras.

Taken with the Holga 120 TLR, Lomo brand 100 ISO color film.

Killer Nostalgia - Toy Camera Film Photography

I am so lucky to be friends with the incredibly talented minds behind Killer Nostalgia, filmmakers who document weddings on super 8mm, 16mm and 35mm film. Since Killer Nostalgia shoots film exclusively, I wanted to to do the same for their portraits. I temporarily ditched the digital cameras in favor of my 35mm SLR, the Diana F+ and Holga TLR, some expired film several years old and some slide film for cross-processing. Eight rolls of film and eight hours of scanning later, I think we ended up with some really cool shots. 

I can't say enough good things about Dennis, Ivette, and Bill. They are all creative, cool, fun people making creative, cool, fun movies. Check them out and have them make an amazing movie for you!

Diana F+ Toy Camera Photography - West Hollywood

Last weekend I took a short workshop on the Diana F+ camera at the Lomography shop in West Hollywood. It was great because I got to learn about the camera first, then shoot a roll of film during a photo walk on Santa Monica Blvd - like test-driving it before I bought one. The Diana is a lot like my Holga camera - plastic and unpredictable. Unlike the Holga, though, it has interchangeable lenses, which is pretty cool. Because I had just started my new job and the workshop entitled me to a 10% discount, I ended up buying a camera at the end of the class. For cameras that are relatively cheaply made, buying the film and getting it developed could turn into an expensive hobby. But it's a risk I'm willing to take. Here's a few shots from my first roll of film, and I'm sure more will be coming soon.

Holga!

As mentioned in some of my earlier posts, I got a Holga camera from my amazing friends Azin and Lyle for my birthday this year. I had two rolls of film, with 12 exposures each, so I could've blown through them very quickly, but I wanted to take my time. I ended up spanning almost a month of carrying the Holga around, taking a few photos here, a few more there, and finally getting them developed last week. And I ended up with a collage of different parts of Los Angeles, and love that there are color and black and whites pictures in the mix. I really like the vintage look of the camera, the experimental nature of not knowing exactly how your film will turn out, and having a fun new toy to play with. I'll be getting more film soon and updating here, but in the meantime check out the awesome Holga flickr pool.

Looking westward and the Hollywood sign from the Griffith Park Observatory.

My friend Aimee's croquet birthday party, where I unfortunately forgot to take pictures of the birthday girl. Hopefully she will forgive me.

Emma in our living room, longer exposure gave a ghosting effect.

Outside our apartment, very early morning. I love the red car tail lights trailing through the frame.

A double exposure and some other shots around Valley Photo Service, using up the last of the film before dropping it off for developing.

Me + Cameras = Happy

So now that I like to fancy myself a photographer, it seemed only fitting to have some pictures of me with cameras. That's what photographers do, right? But which camera should I have in the photo - the one I can do the most with, the one I carry around the most often, the one that looks the coolest? At this point, I currently own 6 cameras, so there are quite a few options to choose from. I decided to have fun and take pictures with all the different cameras to show off my collection! And also show off my new haircut.

The Canon EOS 50E - a 35mm (i.e. real film) SLR camera. I love the way true black and white film looks and this camera is great for shooting that.

The Canon PowerShot A540 - my first digital camera! This little guy is very compact and takes great daylight pictures. The screen on the back is a great size, bigger than my other digitals, and it's small enough that it's really easy to use for quick shots that don't need anything too fancy.

                                      

The Canon PowerShot S3 IS - this is an advanced Point and Shoot camera. It has more options than the A540 and so it gets a lot more use lately.  It's not considered a "professional" camera, which means I can take it into concerts, and it's lightweight enough to carry around in my purse every day. I bought this camera before our trip to Ireland last summer, and it's perfect for traveling.

Okay, technically this camera doesn't work. Well, the camera would work, but it's a vintage Kodak from the 1950s and they apparently don't make film for it anymore. Which is a shame because it's in great, working condition and I bet photos from it would look cool. I love the accordian-style box part of it and think that makes it worth keeping as a prop even if I never get to use it for anything else. 

The Holga 120 TLR - the newest addition to the camera family! I just got this Holga as a birthday present and I'm hoping to shoot with it this weekend. It's a plastic, "toy" camera that takes retro-looking 6 x 6 square film pictures. And the flash "flashes" in white, yellow, red or blue. Should make for some very interesting shots, so be on the lookout.

The Canon 20D - this one is kind of my baby. A digital SLR that I bought used in 2008, but was a splurge for me at the time. This was the camera I used for my photography class last summer and I really learned a lot with it. It's heavier and bulkier than the S3, so I don't carry it around every day, but I can use all my different lenses on it, so it's great for any kind of advanced shooting. It has the Lensbaby lens on it in this picture.