inside an abandoned old dance club/youth club in sandset, vesterålen. evidence showed that through the years this place have been re-occupied by loafers, new-agers and kids feeding an urge to smash things to bits. my parents told me they came there often when they were younger, to dance and meet friends.

the canon a-1 is described as ‘the ultimate reference camera in many minds for over a quarter of a century’. read more about the wonderful a-1 here. i recently got this baby so cheap it’s almost funny – and that included the 50mm 1.4 lens.

cheap film (kodak 200 ‘color plus’). great camera.

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another one from the olympus om-30. the battery for the light meter was dead so i exposed this roll using manual mode. another roll got entirely ruined because i had the camera mistakenly set to automatic.

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olympus om-30, borrowed from a friend. cheap centuria 100 film from konica. expensive opera house in oslo.

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polaroid supercolor 635cl, friday the 13th.

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so i went ahead and finally got me a lomo smena – the “true lomo” of lo-fi photography. most people seem to start off their lomo career with either this one, the lomo lc-a, or the holga. i’m pleased that my interest for lo-fi is still present. i’ve got nothing against digital photography at all, but since i’m a fan of plastic, mystery, luck and all things old and dirty, i find digital photography too easy and predictable to become really interesting. that and the fact that you have no film advance knob!

luckily, i have roll upon roll of cheap film just waiting to merge with the smena. stay tuned!

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an autumn day in two thousand and eight, holding the pentax me packed with some ilford xp2 super chromogenic film. this is also one of those b/w films that you develop in c-41 color chemicals. it’s got a bit more contrast and it’s much sharper than the kodak bw400 cn, but i like them both for their unique characteristics; the kodak has a warmth to it that the ilford doesn’t match, and the ilford is clearer and more detailed.

both of which the kodak t-max combines beautifully.

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miranda sensomat re and the 50mm auto miranda 1.8 on a cold, cold january day, with some kodak bw400 cn. i was eager to see the results from this monochrome (or chromogenic) film, as it’s made to be developed in standard c-41 color chemicals – for convenience i guess. and convenient it was. i handed in the roll at a photo store in town and half an hour later it was done.

i kind of like the tones and the latitude. not too detailed or sharp, but still decent. but i’ll take the t-max or the tri-x any day.

watch this space for some ilford xp2 super photos soon – that’s another one of those handy c-41 monochromogenic(!) films!

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børre, cigarette and tea (or coffee) on an autumn day, two thousand and eight.

miranda sensomat re and some expired fuji superia 400 x-tra.

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kodak 400tx (tmy) in the bronica on an autumn day, two thousand and eight.

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china lucky is a company who, in their own terms, are “the largest national photosensitive materials and magnetic recording media manufacturer in China”, which i do not doubt at all. this is probably the reason i’ve never heard of lucky film before.

“A 棟六樓的風景” by 2493™ from flickr

i’ve tried collecting as much information as i can about this product, but it’s hard. i know that kodak and lucky have joined forces, resulting in kodak aquiring 20 percent of lucky film co., ltd back in 2003. i’ve also learned people tend to either like or dislike this film – pretty much the way people like or dislike anything in this world, i guess. but i decided to give it a try, so i checked in at ebay.
then, after a little rattling around in there, i checked out from ebay, having just bought ten 120-rolls of 100asa black and white film and another ten 135-rolls, that literally cost me nothing. i can’t wait to try out this exotic new film.

“curves and lines” by 2493™ from flickr

you can read a small discussion on lucky’s b/w films here, and then you can check out a lucky film photography group or two on flickr.

stay tuned for lucky pictures!

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top : backseat polaroid shot from near the finnish border in finnmark.
bottom : wysiwyg, really.

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for those of you who haven’t yet had the pleasure: this is elliot erwitt. this guy is the perfect photographer. it seems he’ll never leave or enter anywhere without a camera in hand. erwitt is the reason i bring my camera(s) around at all times. i like his sense of timing (master of the “indecisive moment“), his sense of humor, what he sees and what he’s looking for (or what i think he’s looking for), and the slightly surreal character of most of his work. in my opinion, elliot erwitt is street photography. the picture above is a perfect example of the wit and excellence of erwitt’s photographs.

when i first stumbled across mr. erwitt, in an article in a pretentious photo magazine, two things happened simultaneously:

one; it dawned on me that the sort of photography i was born to do was called ’street photography’, and
two; because of erwitt’s genius i felt very small and insignificant and i just wanted to put all my cameras in a bag and donate them all to charity.

then i went ahead and read the words in the article too, and as i read the last part of the interview, i exhaled and i felt the comfort of a smile on my face:

reporter : if i asked you to choose one single image of yours that expresses everything you feel about life and the great conundrum of human existence – would you be able to do it?
erwitt : – you must be kidding! i am just a photographer and not jesus christ!

take a peek at the photographer pages on magnum photos’ websites if you want.

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top: beer-bench near latter, finnmark – kodak 400 tmy

middle: another chair photo, oslo – ilford xp2 super

bottom: benedicte doing her infamous cross-eye pose – ilford xp2 super

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taken in july. we had indecently long lunches. the old man didn’t seem to mind, though.

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1, 2, 3 : polaroiding in the botanical gardens, grønland, oslo.
4 : van parked by the old ringnes brewery

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so I went ahead and finally got myself a ‘professional’ medium format camera. i’ve been wanting one of those since i first saw the results from my trusty old holga about a year ago or so – the size of the negatives, the detail, the depth of the images, the format itself. i grew addicted.

now, to the camera in question.

the bronica etr-si is a 4.5 x 6 ” medium format camera. i got it (unbelievably cheap) from a professional photographer that has gone 100% digital (a decision i fully respect and understand), and inside the large, retro green bag he handed me i found two 120 film backs, a waist-level finder, the ae-II prism finder, a speed grip motor winder, two focusing screens (split-image and grid lines), a green filter (…) and two lenses – a 50mm 2.8 and a 100mm 4.0 macro.

i love this camera. the glass is perfect, the finders work like a dream, everything is in mint condition except a few scratches from regular use, and the results look brilliant (considering I’m still just a dedicated amateur photographer…)

i think (i think), that this is the last camera i’ll buy for some time. i’m very happy with all the stuff i’ve got right now, and I have to admit i only use 3 or 4 of my cameras on a regular base. i can’t help checking the markets around town when i’m there, but i no longer feel the urge to buy anything …
other than … the polaroid sx-70, if I were to stumble upon it somewhere!

photos coming soon! see you around.

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the hotel riga, where we stayed. the corridors were delightfully creepy. jack would feel very much at home here, methinks.
holga 120 cfn and kodak portra 400 vc.

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little accidents from riga.
shot this may using fuji superia 200 (bought in riga at a silly price) and the trusty ol’ pentax me.

the bottom picture is from an awsome outdoor photo exhibition at the doma square in riga. the original documentary project from 1987 was followed by a “20 years later” edition in 2007. read more about it here. works from the exhibition can be found here.

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