Olympus XA

I’ve got a peaceful, easy feeling

Photography

The desert. I promised I would write about the desert.

A couple of months ago I visited my Dad and stepmother at their new winter home in Needles California. Needles is on the border of California and Arizona, located in the Mojave Desert. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I grew up in Spokane, WA, which is on the edge of a desert, and we drove through it on our way to other places. So my experience with the desert is limited to the High Desert of Eastern Washington.

I was delighted to finally visit this part of the country. I’ve never been to Arizona. I had an interesting reaction to this place. I felt very at-home here. It surprised me, frankly. I am not a hot-weather person. Physically, I don’t do well in anything above 80 degrees. But the heat didn’t bother me on this trip. I was really entranced by the place. It’s stunning in it’s stark beauty. The emptiness calmed me, made me feel at peace.

The history is interesting as well. Needles is on Route 66 and was once a very thriving town. The town has fallen into poverty in the years since Route 66 is no longer used as much. There are lots of vestiges from this time period. It’s both romantic and sad at the same time.

Here are some photos I took while I was there. The color shots were taken with my pinhole camera, and the black and white were made with an Olympus XA.

66 Motel in B&W
a couple of bucks
Zero 2000 + Portra 160 @ < 5 seconds
Zeor 2000 + Portra 160 @ < 5 seconds
Zero 2000 + Portra 160 @ < 5 seconds
Desert Sunset
“The Classy Ass”
Get your kicks on Route 66
window reflection
Zero 2000 + Portra 160 @ 5 seconds.

I was hoping to make it to the Grand Canyon, but unfortunately we couldn’t get out there this time. It is, for sure, on the books for next year.

You can read about Oatman Arizona at Pinhole Obscura, where I recently wrote a blog post about it. Many of the photos above were taken there.

Surreal Purple Landscape

Photography

I mentioned a few months ago that I saw the documentary The Enclave at the Portland Art Museum. The documentary was filmed in Aerochrome which renders the landscape in brilliant pinks and reds. The choice of this film was brilliant for many reasons. Reasons that belong in their very own blog post.

This particular blog post is about film. Being a film photography enthusiast, I am fascinated by a film that changes the look of a landscape. Sadly, Aeorchrome is discontinued.

Enter Lomography*.

They are selling a film called Lomochrome Purple XR. The film does something similar in that it shifts greens to purples and creates very surreal landscapes. Blue Moon sells it locally so I picked some up and loaded it into my Olympus XA. Here are the results.

The film has an ISO rating of 100-400, so I tried it at 100, 200, and 400, depending on where I was. I didn’t see much of a difference in color shifts in the various ISO choices. The photos shot in brighter sunlight seem to be a bit more purpley but not that much more, as you can see above.

Yesterday I shot a roll of Lomo Purple in my pinhole camera at the beach and I am really looking forward to seeing how those came out. I will share the results here when I get them back from the lab.

*As much as I want to hate Lomography I can’t. They keep making products I like! Dammit!

Roll 27 – Olympus XA and Cinestill

Photography

My latest on 52 rolls! Raf and I spent the weekend at the beach a couple of weeks ago and I took a lot of photos. There are tons more to share in future posts.

52 rolls

After seeing the wonderful results on 52 rolls, I wanted to try my hand at Cinestill too. I loaded it up in my new favorite camera: the Olympus XA, and headed to the beach for the weekend. Unfortunately, I am not immediately in love with the results I got with this film. There are a few that I liked (shown below), but generally I am feeling kind of “meh.” My negatives were quite scratched. And there was a bit too much grain for my liking.

The problem, I realized, is that I didn’t shoot this roll under the right lighting conditions. For my next roll I will follow the instructions and shoot using the correct lighting.

View original post

Amsterdam Bikes

Photography
Amsterdam bikes

Amsterdam was all about bikes. It’s nice to reminisce about my trip there.

I want to thank you for your good thoughts, virtual hugs, and comments on my last post. It all really helps so much. Much more than you probably realize. I am very grateful for my internet friends.

I have missed posting photos on Blatherskite and I think I am going to start doing that again. Fridays will be for creative stuff, so photography or poetry or both. Depending on what I have for you. If you are interested in more of my photography you can check out my photography blog here.

This is a photo I took in Amsterdam with my new favorite camera, an Olympus XA. It was loaded with slide film that was cross processed.

Amsterdam Day 6 – Waterlooplein and Rijksmuseum

Travel and Other Adventures

Our last day in Amsterdam was packed full. We decided to first go to Waterloopleinmarkt (the flea market). I was hoping to find some good deals on old film cameras. Unfortunately, it started raining when we were there and everything that wasn’t under a tent was immediately covered up. So if there was a table full of cameras there I did’t get to find it. I did, however, score an old Kodak Brownie box camera for 9 euros. I had to kind of chuckle at how much everyone freaked out over the rain. It was merely a mist and yet you’d think the sky was falling. I guess when you are used to the sky falling a little mist is nothing, really. Here are some photos I took there with my Olympus XA and iPhone:

Crucified Barbie
Magnets
Rainy flea market

When we were done there we wandered back toward our hotel. We took our time and I shot more photos as we went along. We found ourselves wandering into a coffee shop. We were both curious and would have regretted it if we’d left Amsterdam having not been inside one. I was a little hesitant at first. My assumption was that entering one of these places would be akin to entering a crack den (since pot is illegal here and completely demonized). However, I was shocked at what I experienced when I went inside. It had the atmosphere of, indeed, a coffee shop. There were couples sitting at the tables enjoying bong hits together. There were a couple of younger twenty-something guys giggling uncontrollably as they were recalling a story. One of the couples sitting at the table were older, my mom’s age. The people working there were very friendly and professional. The vibe was chill. It was awesome, frankly. My assumptions were totally shattered. I am not sure what other coffee shops are like in Amsterdam, but the one we visited was very nice.

Here are some photos from our wander back to the hotel:

Hot dog stand
Business Man
Waiting
Look Up
Smart Shot
More canals

And finally, we really wanted to get to the Rijksmuseum . When we finally made it over there we only had an hour to spend. So we spent a frantic hour trying to find all of the pieces we wanted to see. Here is a tourist taking an iphone snap of The Milkmaid.
A tourist taking an iphone snap of The Milkmaid

I honestly don’t remember much of the Rijks. It was a blur.