We Play at Paste

We play at Paste –
Till qualified, for Pearl — Ms. Emily Dickinson

Ms Dickinson

I have loved the words and works of Ms. Dickinson since high school when I encountered the poem To make a prairie, but her words have never had such direct application to my life as last night when I began helping my daughter make jewelry.  Mind you, I do not know how to make jewelry.  My ten year daughter, however, desired to make necklaces, earrings, and so forth from glass beads.  She also wanted to open an Etsy Shop called Clementine’s Corner where she might eventually sell her creations (with me overseeing her shop, of course).  Knowing that my daughter’s goal was well within her artistic capabilities, I agreed.  In any case, I had already decided that I wanted to learn to make jewelry so that I might incorporate my Polaroid photography in those creations.  Last night we went to Michael’s to get some framing done and decided to look for beads there.  Oh, we contemplated the beautiful and expensive beads we saw there but eventually settled on an inexpensive kit that came equipped with most of the supplies we needed to begin.  We definitely need to play with paste before we graduate to pearl!

Things Get Strange: for the love of distortion & blur

Here is the continued story of the world as seen through plastic lenses…

Multiple exposures with the malfunctioning shutter of a Diana camera can render interesting results.

things get strange

More from the Diana camera…

floating venus

Vintage signage from Mankato, MN.   Holga with Ilford Delta 3200…

BOWL

Diana camera shot of a mausoleum door in the cemetery next door to the Glensheen Mansion in Duluth, MN.

the unknown

Diana camera shots from South Shore of Lake Superior in Wisconsin…

earth times three

holding up half the sky

No gratuitous umbrella shots here… It was raining, and my daughter was carrying her Hello Kitty umbrella with her.

a girl with her umbrella

Holga, Ilford Delta 32oo, and blizzard…

last days

Finally, through January 6th, if you buy one regularly priced item from my Etsy Shop, you’ll receive a gift print.  (This excludes the items in the New Year Specials section of my shop.)

The Dream Songs

While some photographers are dreaming of the next spec to be introduced to digital SLR technology, there are those who think the crappier the camera the better.  While that might be a bit of an exaggeration,  some of us do consider distortion, blur, light leaks, and vignetting to be features rather than qualities to be avoided in our photographs.  We are the lovers of toy cameras.

the dream song

Toy cameras are inexpensive cameras made mostly from plastic, often including even the lens.  The Diana camera has been around since the 1960s, whereas the Holga didn’t arrive on the scene until 1982.  There are many, many more types of toy cameras, but the two with which I have worked most often are the Diana camera and the Holga.  I actually prefer the Diana camera, and, among my Diana cameras, I even have my favorite, for each Diana camera is unique.

Though the name implies play, many artists are serious about low-fidelity photography.  A good online resource for you, if you are interested in working with toy cameras, is toycamera.com,  which is associated with Light Leaks Magazine.  There is also an annual Krappy Kamera contest and show at the Soho Photo Gallery.

This collection of my own toy camera work emphasizes dream and memory.  I made all of the photos with either the Diana camera or the Holga.  It’s not the season of the year that is important in the set but the way in which the photos yield to the suggestion of dream.

The two following photographs are double exposures taken with a Diana camera of my children at Lake Superior.

daughter of the sea

spirit selves

Walking out over the ice of Lake Superior…

a poem for one voice

visual disturbances

Shooting into light and mist with a Diana camera…

from light and mist

Winter dunes of Lake Superior shot with Holga…

the dreams of a stranger

Finally, I’m currently having a sale in my Etsy Shop.  The price for all the items in the sale items section have been reduced.  At least one photograph in that section is a toy camera shot.  If you don’t have an Etsy account for shopping, you can always contact me by email about purchases.

Elinor
elinor@equivoquephoto.com

The following 8″x12″ print on Kodak Endura professional paper is now listed 20 USD.

untitled portrait

Portraits, Film, and Light

In our home, photography is a fact of life.  Every member of the family has been a photographic subject or the one behind the lens at one time or another, and for me that adds up to a lot of portraits of family and friends in my body of work.  While I have taken my fair share of digital portraits, the portraits in film are the ones I love best, perhaps because the results of black and white digital conversion still cannot compare to the range of tonality one gets with black and white film types.  I happen to love black and white portraits.

The following photo, The Naturual, shows my youngest son’s love for my favorite Diana camera.  Each Diana camera is different.  His favorite camera always seems to be what my favorite is at the time.

Photography is a family affair.

Sometimes the playmates of my children find their way into the frames as well…

an untitled portrait

Here is an angel among us.  Look at the hearts in his eyes.

un ange parmi nous

It’s nice to remember the longer days during these, the darkest, coldest, shortest days of the year.

girlfriends

More memories from the neighborhood…

a boy child

My lovely daughter…

lovely

My youngest son with my oldest son’s girlfriend…  My youngest has the brightest eyes you’ll ever see.

bright eyes

And finally a portrait of the artist herself… a very old portrait!  It was taken with my late grandfather’s old Pentax.

Pentax ID

Finally, through Decemeber 23rd, if you purchase any item from my Etsy Shop, you will receive an extra photograph!  You may contact me about availability for gifts, either through Etsy or via email at elinor@equivoquephoto.com.  Here are some of the photos currently offered in my Etsy Shop.

Becoming Light

unspoken truths

In the Form of a Dream

a poem in light

lost in translation

water, evening, poetry

and summer's lease

frozen ghosts

morning song

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