Through The Viewfinder And Into The Greenhouse

Yesterday's greenhouse made it into today's photography as well.  This time with the addition of a Kodak Duaflex, allowing me to get a nice TTV shot.  The greenhouse can be found in Belfast's Botanic Garden.

I appear to not only be on a black and white kick, but also a greenhouse kick.  Worry not, I'm sure I'll beat at least one of those habits tomorrow.

Lights From Off Camera Flashes and Christmas Trees, With Some Guest Appearances from Violins and Ducks

And now, to bring my daily photography up to date...

It took me awhile, but on the 17th I finally decided I should take a photograph of my new guitar.  It was the first thing (besides necessary food) that I purchased once I moved to Belfast.  The guitar is nothing special...I don't mean anything negative by that, it plays well and sounds good, but it just seems to be your standard, tad better than amateur acoustic guitar.  I really wanted to bring my Danelectro with me, but travelling light was necessary, and my beloved guitar would have taken up too much room.

I really enjoyed taking this shot.  It was much more technical than many of my daily photographs.  I shot it through the viewfinder of my Kodak Duaflex.  Any chance to shoot TTV makes me happy.  But on top of that, I used an off camera flash that was triggered from the other side of a door so that the little translucent window on the door would diffuse and spread the light.  There was much careful positioning with much trial and error before this shot was perfected...I love the glare and spots of light...

There are a few street musicians in the middle of the city that are fairly ingenious.  In an attempt to reach further with their beautiful violin playing, they have attached what resembles a piece of an old bugle to their violins.  The picture doesn't make it easy to see exactly how they did this, but I've been trying for awhile to get a good shot of one of these guys and their inventions...they always escape my camera, so I will just have to manage with this photo from behind...

The 19th of November marked the first day of the Christmas season for Belfast.  Thousands of people gathered in the dark city, around what was a dark Christmas tree, waiting for the moment that all the Christmas lights would be turned on.  A countdown started just a couple seconds before 7pm, and once the voices reached "one", the whole city became illuminated with twinkling lights of all different colors and sizes.  This photo was taken just a second after the lights went on...

This morning was the type of morning that requires a nice walk by a river or some similar body of water.  So we obeyed.  We grabbed cameras and sweatshirts and made our way to Lagan Meadows.  It is a wonderful place to spend a cool but sunny morning.  Or at least all dog-owners think so...and that right there is enough reason to go, mass quantities of adorable dogs...sadly, neither of these are dogs...

There we go, all caught up.

Cleaning Up Before Spain

I wanted to post yesterday and today's pictures before heading out for Spain tomorrow morning.  I figure if i don't post them now, they will just end up tainting four days worth of Madrid, Malaga and Ronda.  So here they are..nothing too fantastic in that I haven't had much free time, what with the Spain prepping and whatnot...

Yesterday's photo is the first shot of my wife's university that I took that I actually like.  I got it right before the sun began to rise.  Queen's University.  

Today's main photo gave me a chance to get my old Duaflex out for some TTV shooting.  Again, it was early, the sun was yet to rise, and the dark sky in my photo is proof of it.

My other picture from today is my ongoing book list.  I didn't want to have it as my only picture since I just recently did so with Moby Dick... So that's why you get to look at a TTV lamp as well.  Here is The Stranger by Camus.  A very good and also very quick read.  I finished it in about three hours and picked up his The Fall.

Zeno's Paradox of the Arrow (and another day of photography)

Yesterday was extremely windy.  It was while I was out walking around in the wind, wind that I later learned was part of a new hurricane that recently showed up on the radar, that I started thinking about Zeno of Elea.

Zeno was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher.  He theorized about many things, motion being one of them.  His paradox of the arrow logically comes to the conclusion that motion does not exist.  Of course we seem to live in a world filled with motion (leaves blowing all over the place while the trees bend at the wind's mercy and rain drops slam into your face) and thus, his conclusions seem to be paradoxical.

The argument goes as such - imagine an archer is preparing to shoot an arrow at a target.  The arrow is a certain size, occupying a specific amount of space.  He shoots it.  Though the arrow appears to move from the bow to the target, at any specific point in time, though the arrow my be in the air, it is static, occupying no more space than it ever does, not moving to a position where it is yet to be.  Time and motion are composed of these instances, and since in these instances everything is at rest, motion is an illusion.

Of course, Aristotle himself had certain responses to the many paradoxes that Zeno came up with.  And since then, many other people brought up opposing conclusions from the argument and found elements of the premises that were fallible. 

Regardless of the authenticity of the paradox, I started thinking about it on a day that seemed to be filled with motion, and so decided to capture it in photo series form.

  Zeno's Paradox Series: Ribbon in the Wind

 I am yet to decide on the exact rules of this photo series.  I want to capture images of things that appear to be in motion without using the standard long exposure method.  The long exposure method would show what Zeno is arguing against - things in a transitional period - images with blur and such.  I want to capture precise instances that the subject (as it is) appears to be occupying solely the space that it occupies...just in different locations.  Multiple images, each showing a unique location of the subject, seems to be the best method.

- So really this just seems to be a study of motion series...the difference being it came about by thinking about some old Greek guy -

Today, September 13

This is a photo of a model of a street in Belfast city.  No, it isn't.  I lie.  It is a tilt-shift photograph of a street in Belfast city.  With a police officer taking a picture of the ticket he just placed on a vehicle.  Using a tilt-shift lens (homemade, of course) gives certain images a quality similar to that of a photograph of a die-cast model.

Odd Position

I think a second after I took this picture, he fell over.

Eggs Through the Viewfinder

Since I had my Duaflex out from yesterday's picture, I figured I might as well use it today as well.  When I thought of what my day would entail (band practice and eggs), I knew what I would be photographing.  Eggs
My wife and I rarely eat eggs.  I wont say that we are vegans... we purchase things that are not vegan, but they are produced locally and organically and are from farms that we can actually walk around on.  We think that this has a more positive effect on the world around us than not touching anything that isn't vegan.  We want to create a demand for local small businesses that believe in the ethics and practices that we believe in.  (I know there are some contradictions and issues in the practice that we subscribe to, but we are constantly altering the way we look at things, trying to figure out what is the best method for us.)
But today, I must make about three dozen hard boiled eggs for my sister's wedding.  I am in the process of doing so.  Some of them will become buffalo eggs, some will be red beet eggs, some will be mustard eggs and some will be dill pickle eggs.  They all will then become deviled eggs.  Here are three of those three dozen.

Beautiful Local Brown Eggs

These eggs have such a nice color to them.  So unlike the bleached white things you get at those massive grocery stores.  They would go rather well with a slice of that honey oat wheat bread that is sitting in the background of the photo.

Laundry Day

It wasn't laundry day for me today (yesterday, on the other hand, was), but it was for someone in my neighborhood.  Passing the brightly colored articles of clothing on my way home was all the prompting I needed to figure out what today's photo would be.  I got home, grabbed my cameras (my Canon T1I and my ancient Kodak Duaflex IV), and went right back out.
On its own, a clothesline might not be anything special, but I have taught myself how to see the world in different shades, void of color all together, and in tons of different forms that require post-processing or just simple in-camera manipulation.  I saw the clothing hanging there and I knew that all it needed was to be shot through my old Kodak Duaflex IV - the more and more popular Through the Viewfinder, or TTV technique.

   Laundry Day

The only post-processing that I do to my TTV images is an upping of saturation...The images that you would get from a working Duaflex were known for their strongly saturated colors.

My Backyard

Cellar door is a phrase considered by many to be the most phonaesthetic.  This means it is beautiful solely based on the way it sounds, and not due to any connotations or mental images that may surface when heard.
Donnie Darko, a fantastic movie, brought this concept to the general public even though the idea has actually been around for awhile and has been written about by many great minds, including J.R.R. Tolkien.
Oddly enough, it seems that there are very few cellar doors left.  I am one of the lucky few that still has one connected to their house, and so, once I was ready to go in search of today's picture, I started in my backyard, near the cellar.  

 

The Most Beautiful

Spring's slow but steady approach has me photographing more flowers and plants than I ever have before.  But which is more beautiful? A tangible thing like a flower or a phrase or idea, like "Cellar Door"?

For both of these pictures, I used a technique called TTV or Through the Viewfinder.  You can read more about it at the end of this post, but basically I shoot with my regular camera, through the viewfinder of another camera...in my case an old Kodak Duaflex IV.  You can see my other TTV photos at my Etsy Store, look for "through the viewfinder" in the title.  next2hector Etsy

A Fence Through The Viewfinder

"Fence" may not be so phonaesthetic, but if shot from a decent angle with a unique technique, it might end up looking pretty decent.  This fence is also in my backyard.  As of late, some beautiful cardinals have been using it as a tight rope.

These images were taken using a Kodak Duaflex IV, manufactured from the 1940s-1960s. The Duaflex was not the only camera used to create this photo. 'Through the Viewfinder' means a picture is taken, usually with a digital camera, of the viewfinder on another camera, usually an old camera (in this case the Duaflex), in order for the final image to have a vintage feel. The vintage feel comes from the dust specks that are on the old camera’s viewfinder as well as the vignette that images will tend to get due to the convex surface of the viewfinder.