The Fam, Part One: Meet My Minolta

So if you are familiar with me and my previous blogging efforts, you may have noticed that things seem a little different around here. You probably had no idea I was interested in photography. Neither did I! It was only recently that I learned that to be a proper hipster I had to have cheap plastic camera, film of course, with a funky name like LaSardina or Diana. Film is like, a thing now, you see. It's back and there's this whole Lomography movement which is all about lo-fi analogue photography with a focus on unique images created with surprisingly expensive cheap plastic cameras. I was quite taken by both the pictures I was seeing and the cameras themselves. The looked so cool. So funky. So retro. So me.

 I was particularly smitten with The Diana.
Isn't she cute? I just had to have one. I didn't care that they took a type of film I'd not heard of before and which would be extremely difficult to have processed. I wanted that camera, and someone was going to get me one for Christmas, I just knew it. Except they didn't. I rather suspect that people weren't taking my sudden interest in photography seriously, definitely not seriously enough to fork out a hundred bucks for a plastic camera that took film, of all things. I understand. It's true I am given to whims.

 I did receive a camera, though. A wonderful person gave me an awesome camera, although I didn't find it at all awesome at the time. It was used. Old. I wanted a new camera that looked old. And even though it was old, it was incredibly intimidating with its many buttons and modes and settings. There was no user manual. I tried to hide my disappointment, and was pretty successful, I think. But I was not pleased at all with my Minolta Maxxum7000. Not. At. All. In fact I barely touched the thing for the first month that I had it, a month that I spent coveting and researching other cameras.

 I had decided I didn't want a Diana after all. Now my heart was set upon a Holga.

 All the research I was doing did make me want to take some pictures, though, even if it was that clunky old Minolta. I quickly burned through the two rolls of color film I had received along with the camera just trying to figure out how the hell it worked. There were constant misfires resulting in many photographs of corners and ceilings.

 I found a downloadable manual online, and eventually I started getting a feel for it, as well as an appreciation for my camera's excellent reputation. Turns out it was rather revolutionary in the day, and many professional photographers sing its praises still.

 Finally I felt ready to try the expensive roll of black&white film I had purchased and was saving so as not to waste it on still more close up ceiling shots. Did you know that there are different types of black&white film? I didn't. But there are. You see there's black&white color negative film, or cn41, which can be processed with the same chemicals as color film. The advantage of this type of film is that you can have it developed pretty much anywhere. And then there's true black&white film, which cannot be processed just anywhere, but has the definite advantage of looking much better. If you're really industrious, you can pretty easily do your own developing, too. Anyway, I had unknowingly purchased the latter, and I did not want to fritter it away on practice shots and misfires.

 One of the things I like about film is the delayed gratification. Digital cameras let you see your pixelized pics right away. With film you have to shoot the whole roll before having to wait at least the hour it will take to have them developed at a drug store or something. Or, in the case of true black&white, you could be waiting a week or more. I waited ten days for that first real roll. I started to lose my appreciation for the whole delayed gratification thing.

But when I finally got had my prints in hand, it was so worth it. Sure there were some duds. Quite a few, in fact. But there were a couple with which I actually felt quite pleased:

I like taking pictures of lamps for some reason:

And so does my daughter, whom I have been trying to involve in my new hobby. She actually quite likes it, and I think she definitely has potential. In addition to the following photograph, she had a seriously snazzy self portrait on this roll.

And that's the story of how I met and fell in love with my Minolta. We've run numerous rolls of various speeds, types and brands through it. I didn't think I'd like shooting with color that much, but I kind of do.

I've acquired lots of cool filters that are fun to play with. Red filters are typically used to enhance contrast in black and white photography, but can have some cool effects when used with color films:

I really like this clear centered blurring filter:

Warming filters are nice to use for indoor portraits. I used Gimp photo editing software to trick this one out a bit.

Needless to say, I love this camera. There will be others, there already are, but I know I will have a long and fruitful relationship with My Minolta.
I hope you've enjoyed this installment of The Fam. Be sure to check back soon for part two, Here's Holga.