backtrack #1

Sundo

lubitel 166b

Ilford XP2 400

digiprint scan

let me start with pictures taken waaaaaay back.

walking around esteban abada street. i took a shot of this girl while i was sitting on the benches near the day care center. this back view of her gives a sense of mystery to the shot. but i still wish i had taken the front view of her instead. hahahahah! newbie mistakes

changing lanes

I came across rangefinderfilipinas while surfing the net. It was a different kind of community because the people there know what they are talking about. the forum is very informative as they discuss almost everything about film photography. and it was right then and there that i realized there was so much i have yet to learn. I was getting frustrated with lomography because the experience was kind of a hit or miss thing for me. No concept behind every shot. It was just... pointless.

I wanted to explore rangefinders but i needed to buy one first. I searched for a camera that would not be too complicated to use for a newbie like me. I narrowed down my choice to the fed-2. I ordered it through ebay and it came after 23 days of waiting. It was a test of patience since it was my first time purchasing from a foreign seller. I was also scared of the customs tax that would be levied on the camera. Luckily, i was able to get the camera without any additional taxes.

The fed-2 has a different feel to other cameras i have held before. first of all, it is heavy and it looks like a tank. compared to my previous cameras, it actually feels sturdier. Lomos are made of plastic and i always felt that i could break them any moment. secondly, this camera has fully loaded specs. It gives me more options on how i would like to expose the film. It would help me learn proper exposure and more importantly understand exposure itself. For the first time in my journey into photography, i never felt any anxiety towards the camera. I feel that i'm in control. That this camera would be able to show what truly is in my thoughts. not just spontaneous pictures that i didn't expect to show in the first place.

I shot a test roll though it and i was surprised at the results. I am assured that this time i took the right decision

going for the lubitel

At first sight of those twin-lens cameras, i immediately fell in love. just like the fisheye 2, i scoured the net for infos about it. the square photos were very attractive but when i checked the prices, my world suddenly crashed as i found out that they are very expensive. Rolleiflexes and Yashicas were too expensive for me. It was a sorry day for me. I almost gave up on buying one. But then i came across the Lubitel.

It's a soviet TLR copy of those i previously mentioned. Though it can't match up to the functions of the Rolleis and the Yashicas, soviet cameras are reputable for their cheap prices but capable of producing excellent results. I quickly visited ebay to look for it but then i realized i still dont have a credit card so i cant use ebay. i had to find another way...

as i was surfing through classified ads in the country i saw one selling a lubitel 166b for 4500 pesos. fairly good price. the seller asked me to wait for a few weeks because it had to be shipped from the USSR. and it was very agonizing. i was very excited to hold it in my hands.

when it came, i immediately shot a roll through it and was very happy of the results. however when i tested the delay-timer, it got stuck. i panicked because i couldn't put it back on. i had to bring it to hidalgo but they could not fix it. i had to force it to back to its original place and it ended up getting broken... i regret having to force it back.

but the delay-timer isn't that essential. so i could live with the lubitel with the broken delay-timer. the lubitel will stay with me for a long time. square formats will never "fade"

im hoping to get a rolleicord soon : )

Of lomos and beginnings

i wasn't really a big fan of photography until one of my friends found his old family camera. It was a canon film slr and he brought with him to school during summer classes of '09. since i was with him most of the time, i was constantly exposed to all his ravings and rantings about his new hobby. I stayed with him inside computer labs surfing the net for great pictures that he said he would try to do. I would watch him holding the slr while feeling a sense of happiness while he talks about it and his recent photo-adventures. He would show me his deviantart page where his latest pictures are published. It wasn't too long that I was drawn into his hobby.

fast-forward to the start of the semester... another friend of mine bought a Holga CFN 120 (the famous lomography camera). What attracted me to it was the fact that it was a toy camera and it was capable of producing wonderful results (as i researched on the net). I was exposed to all the lomo stuff around the net: light-leaked pictures, multi-exposures, cross-processing, expired films, slide films or what have you. It was then that i decided that i would buy one for myself. come to think of it, i was gonna try photography but not seriously since i was getting a toy camera.

So i researched on the net on which to buy. I picked the fisheye because it looked otherworldly. i remember asking my friend to accompany me to hidalgo, quiapo because i heard that cameras are cheap there. So we went to hidalgo and visited all the shops and to my dismay almost all of them didn't sell or wasn't even familiar with the fisheye except for one shop. I bought it immediately after seeing it and i still can remember the happy feeling of holding it in my hands for the first time. I bought an expired film with it and went home with a smile on my face.

My days with the fisheye were bittersweet. my very first roll was underexposed and it was my first experience of the unpredictability of expired films in the negative way. But on most days i would get good results. I took it to bangkok with me, I took to school with me, and I took it to drinking nights with me. I tried all the tips and tricks that the internet showed me (lazy john, salty single, carribean colors, off the hook, etc.). It was fun to say the least.

However, I was limited to a B-setting, and a normal setting (aperture: f/8, shutter: 1/125) so i couldn't quite use it always. When i was out shooting with my friends with their SLRs i would always feel inferior because their cameras had more capabilities as compared to mine. At times like those, i would just sit and look at my camera with an unsatisfied look on my face. plus, the time came when it just sat sitting on my bookshelf without me noticing it for a long time. soon, after 3 months of usage, i finally sold it to someone starting out in lomography.

and that was it...though i never regret buying the fisheye. i will never forget where i started with. it was truly a very different experience