Printing Paper

I was able to use fiber paper for the first time Wednesday night. Before, I had been using resin coated paper which is quicker to use and dry. Fiber paper has a great quality and professional look, and I also get to hang dry it which makes me feel like a super awesome old timey photographer. I really like using the fiber paper and don't think I will ever be able to go back to RC!

Now that I'm done nerding out, here are two photos I printed with fiber paper:

Holga pt.2

Some more images from my first Holga test roll.

Nick and me, double exposure at the park.

Tree double exposure.

Experiment with the three color flash and triple exposure.

All cameras should have a red, yellow, and blue flash.

This is probably my favorite from the entire roll and has the least amount of experimentation. Funny how that works sometimes.

Holga pt.1

Finally got some film developed from my first go using a Holga. Mine came with the option of using the square format (6x6 12 images) or rectangle format (6x4.5 16 images). I ended up choosing the latter so I could really test out the Holga as much as possible in different situations and experiments.

So basically this photos are part of a test roll and therefore has lots of silliness.

Uncle Zion, the llama.

Testing out the blue flash on the oyster mushroom grow kit, and the double exposure with Nick and some pleasant yellow flowers.

Things that go well together: Lev and his van; Eric and his love of doxens.

My Favorite from Summer

This is a mash of images from summer in Arcata, CA, and a meadow mushroom spore print. I'm a huge, huge fan of double exposure and am sort of embarrassed to admit I never really did them with 35mm until last summer. I shared the images in this post, but never shared a great detail of this image (I may do this with some others, too). I'm excited to make double exposures again, especially with the season time mash (Arcata images happened in Summer and the spore print in Fall).

It would be interesting to do, if I was patient enough, to shoot a whole roll now and then wait a few years and take double exposures over it. It would be a time mash, which could be pretty interesting.

What do you think? Any other mashing ideas?

Straight Lines for States

I'm in the middle of designing an album cover for my friend Eric Bablinskas of Straight Lines for States. He's still finishing up some songs for it and deciding on an Album name while I play with fonts and design. I haven't change the image too drastically because I really like the photo. I think just a simple font with band and album name will do, but we'll see how it turns out later.

This is the original photo

And these are ones I have been working on for album covers:

Like I said, it's pretty simple so far. I need to find some different free fonts to use that will go well with this image and talk to Eric about his artistic opinion. If you're a musician or have a band and need a picture for your album, website, Facebook fan page, etc. hit me up at letitberaw(at)gmail(dot)com.

Photos from October

I use my medium format rather sparingly because the film is a little more expensive to buy and develop. But oh, the glorious detail! I'm excited to use it a lot starting this week for some new black and white images. I'm pretty sure that I want to take images in CA parks, but taking pictures in CA haunted places (a la this lovely link) sounds pretty good too. I need to make a decision by this Sunday.

This is the 100 year old barn at Nick's parents place. It is very photogenic.


Chelsea looking majestic on top of the Santa Theresa foothills. October was a nice month. I saw friends, carved a pumpkin, and got a job. Hurray!

Fog and Haze

It has finally cleared up in my area of California. It was foggy and hazey for most of December until the end of last week. On my way to work I would always find moments when the fog was so eerie and inviting of a photograph, but I just didn't have the time. I'm lucky I got these two, but I wish I had been able to take more.

In other news, I am starting another photo class which means there will be another project in black and white. This time I'm doing landscapes of California state and county parks like Big Sur, Uvas, Almaden Quick Silver, Henry Co, Henry Cowell, and others. It will be a very fun adventure to trek around each.

Flickr Favorites #21

This weeks Flickr inspiration: Herbs

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I love herbs. They make life smell, taste, and feel better.

How to make tinctures

Tinctures use alcohol to extract the essence of herbs into a concentrated amount. They take about 2-3 weeks to finish, but only about 10-15 minutes to make. This year for Christmas I made sleepy time/stress removal tinctures which contained these ingredients:

lavender (calming, tasted good, anti-spasmatic)
lemon verbena leaf (calming, tastes good)
fried-egg plan leaf (sleep, calming)
rosemary (relaxation, anti-spasmatic)
poppy leaf (sleep, calming)
vodka (must be 80 proof or higher. I used a 1.75L bottle of Sky vodka for 12 tinctures)
12 pint sized mason jars

I recommend using organic herbs because pollution or toxins will also be extracted (ex: avoid picking herbs on the side of a busy street). Fresh herbs are best, but if you don't have fresh herbs handy, dried leaves will also work.

Step 1: Gather 12 mason jars and clean them. We're not actually canning anything, and alcohol is involved, so they don't need to be specially sanitized.

Step 2

Add herbs. I used more lavender and lemon verbena than anything else because it was more available to me (an they're delicious). I only used about a handful of fried egg plant and poppy leaves because a little goes a long way, and they taste horribly bitter.

I added about 2 spoon fulls of lavender to each

1 1/2 spoonful of lemon verbena and 1 spoonful of rosemary

Split a handful of fried egg plant leaves into 12 (so only a couple leaves in each jar) and did the same for the poppy leaves.

Step 3

I pack the jars about 3/4 full of herbs then fill with vodka. The more herbs you stuff in, the better. Close the lids on tight and let the tinctures sit for about 2 weeks out of direct sunlight. They will turn a lovely golden brown color and smell quite herbaceous.

This is what my tinctures looked like after 2 weeks.

Beautiful golden color! You can strain the herbs out or leave them in the jar. When I last made tinctures I strained them all and it was a huge messy hassle. This year I will leave the herbs in to float around. They are rather pretty.

Step 4

For packaging, I cut some book marks in half and stamped them. I also wrote the ingredients and directions on the back of each.

The final product

I like to take a drop or two before I go to bed at night. Enjoy!

Moth

Going to Chevys today, take some pictures, work, then hot tub. I think this is the first time I've ever felt relieved that the holidays are over.

Speaking of new years - I checked out what some of you said on your blogs, but what was the best part?
My favorite part was walking late a night while eating a cheeseburger. Happy 2012!

New layout

I'm going to be selfish and say this blog is for me now. I follow lots of fantastic blogs which I read daily and will occasionally spotlight here, but I will not be doing button sharing here anymore. So feel free to keep or delete my button.

I keep getting closer to the layout I desire, but I'm not quite there yet. This is close, but still something is off.

Other than that, I have instagram on my phone now for any of you who are interested. My user name is letitberaw. Here are some things I've posted so far:

"tinctures"

"smug Louie"

"Deer at the library"