on your mark, get set, holga

my first holga experience

earlier this month, my dear friend Janis informed me of her newest, exciting little toy from hong kong.

a holga. 'dear holga' to be exact.

i had heard about holgas and seen photos taken with the plastic toy but had never had the chance to hold one, never mind take a photo with it!

so during a ridiculous and unexpected warm spell in the middle of january, we headed to the worlds longest outdoor skating rink to laugh at each others skating skills, count points for near falls and play around with dear holga!

as expected, a great time was had! multiple exposures, high fives and leg shots (a crowd favourite) were taken. the creativity was flowing!!

now, this is where the story gets sad.

the following week we picked up the prints, extremely excited and nervous at the same time and headed to Stella's for the unveiling! with fast beating hearts we opened the package and just about cried.

out of a full roll of 120 colour and half a roll of 120 b&w, we had a mere 4 decent shots of our night of skating. how depressing!

here are two of my favourites :

BUT! as sad and discouraging as this was, we decided that we wouldn't give up!

i think a good characteristic to have during the learning process of film photography and in life in general is to be optimistic even in the hardest, most frustrating times.

with that said, here's to our next holga shoot! this time with some real light and just a bit of experience. looking forward to it!

a great place to Eat!

the fantastic little bistro / bookstore

after a full morning of running around the city snapping photos with Pax, i met up with a lovely group of friends at Eat! Bistro.

what a cute little spot. its mismatched furniture, halloween orange napkins and hand polished silverware gave off a very cozy, welcoming feel (not to mention the 'Glee' soundtrack setting the mood).

Justin, Kari, Janis (the highly favoured employee being on an excused one hour lunch break) and i sat down for a tasty meal and some shared laughs while being visited occasionally by our other good friend and employee of Eat!, Krista.

afterwards K, J & i hit the adjacent bookstore to browse the goods and have a bit of a photoshoot.

overall, i'd say it was a pretty fantastic first experience.

i will surely be back numerous times.

thanks Eat!

post script : if you get a chance to make a visit, try the chicken pot pie. incredible.

if i could have any superpower :

a tribute to our feathered friends

maybe it's my upbringing being raised by birdwatchers.

maybe it's the simple life they seem to live.

maybe it's the fact that they can FLY.

i just love birds.

it don't matter if you're ...

my first roll of black & white film.

picked up my first rolls!!

last saturday ol' Pax and i hit the streets of downtown winnipeg. the day couldn't have been better for taking photos. +4 and sunny. that's right, on january 16th! who would have ever thought? not i! but don't take that as a complaint - my word, i LOVE(d) it!

so naturally, it made sense to spend some 1 on 1 time with my camera. see what different exposures turned out like, get a feel for composing, etc.

and, well, these are some of my favorites from this roll!

i was really happy with the the outcome of the black & whites. there will definitely be more to come!

post script : on a side note, getting film developed is NOT cheap! until i actually get a hang of this, these photos are definitely not worth what i paid for them!

monk's supper

the other night i was browsing through my photos and found this lovely piece of history :

here is 7 year old michael!

this was called a 'Monk's Supper' ... we ate the most awkward food with the most awkward utensils we could find! not the most clean activity, but certainly the most fun!

whisk plus spaghetti plus grocery bag shirt equals a pretty great dinner

nice to meet you, blogspot

why am i starting a blog? is my life interesting enough to 'blog' about? will anybody follow it? well, let me tell you why ...

i recently met a fantastic group of 'lifestyle bloggers' (i ii iii) who share the highlights of their lives as often as possible with the blogging world.

i run my own blog in reference to the beginnings of my humble photography business, but felt that it might be fun to have something more personal to update and fill people in on - as i am sure anybody looking for a wedding photographer wouldn't give two cares as to what i did last saturday night.

...

this blog is going to be a journal of my new born life in film.

a number of months ago i became quite interested in film photography but was completely unsure of how to use a film camera and interested in how it might turn out. so i asked my lovely parents if they had a film camera kicking around. like most parents over the age of 40, they did. a Pentax K1000 from the early 80's. probably the most common type of Pentax film camera, but it would do!

shortly after scoring this wonderful device and taking 6 shots, my life got insanely busy and i found no time to shoot nor learn about it further. that was until now. currently i have 3 rolls of film getting developed (including my first roll EVER!) so i'm pretty excited about the outcome.

i absolutely LOVE the look of film photography. the saturation, the contrasts, the textures, the inconsistencies, the blurring. all of it. most of all, i enjoy the patience required to compose the shot the way you want it. i'm very new to it all, but i am definitely looking forward to the learning curve!

truthfully, this is really all a plan to get me to use film more often when i'm out and about. i want to try ALL sorts of cameras, formats and techniques. i am quite pumped about this!

so here is my attempt at entering the infamous World of Blogging!

wish me luck!