A little bit of Charisa

This a Polaroid (yeah really, remember those) from the big stinking camera in one of the previous posts. Big professional cameras like that one have interchangeable film backs. And, one of the options is for a Polaroid back. Back in the days before digital, a photographer would shoot some Polaroids to check lighting and exposure before exposing regular film. That is still done, but Polaroid film is mostly used in fine art photography. There is a vast amount of crazy things that can be done with Polaroid film after it has been exposed. Nothing has been done to this one though, just scanned.

Examples of Polaroid transfer: http://flickr.com/photos/abbeywuthrich/211354614/

Once the Polaroid has partially developed. You peel apart backing and since the chemicals are still wet you can transfer the image over to another substrate. Very cool and funky.


And here is what a woman who is desperate to take a bath does and can't have one put in her house. She buys an old iron tub from the online auction site, has her husband pick it up with a friend and a trailer. Then the two fellas carry around the back of the house, prop it up on some old bricks. She proceeds to fill it with hot water hosed in from the house and then sticks a cast iron double burner gas camp stove under to cook herself. Simple really.

I totally forgot to put this up.

Back in November, the company I work for, TimeZoneOne, took a little vacation. Every year the Kiwis stationed in the Chicago office come down during Thanksgiving week. We turn on the voicemail, lock the front door, and head off as a group for a five day adventure. This year was my first year to participate.

We headed South and hit Mt Cook, Wanaka, crossed over the West Coast and came back North.

Follow the link below to my Facebook photo album of the fun.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=21670&l=81a82&id=528281812

and video of crazy dog

As I said he does love the water.

dogs and other animals and us

Our attempt at a family photo. Dogs don't do pics well.


Charisa and I at her company Christmas party.


Some of Charisa's pals/coworkers.


In Chrischurch we have a small but very nice zoo, the Orana Wildlife Park. During the Christmas holidays we went with our friends Mark and Hannah. Giraffes are cool, especially when you get to feed them and get wrapped up by their neck as they try to get to the branch in your other hand after finishing the first one.



Mark, Mark and Hannah.


Hannah, Charisa, the Toys R Us mascot and some tourist from Australia who ended up in many of our giraffe pics. That's OK, I ended up in most of hers.


We've had a really nice summer so far this year. On the really hot days we've started taking advantage of having several ocean beaches to choose from nearby. Our dog Henry is a swimming, fetching freak of nature. Charisa and I have been out swimming in the surf and even though he can't touch ground and the waves tower over him, he just swims out with us. We think he is actually trying to rescue us, but we are scared he'll tire himself out so much he'll drown. But he doesn't. He has swam a solid 15 minutes in big surf without a break several times. Crazy dog.


I recently borrowed a camera from my pro photographer friend. I am good friends with his assistant as well, and he told me I should try out this cool medium format camera, they rarely use. Medium format cameras use film that makes a negative almost four times the size of 35mm, so you get great image quality. I've used medium format cameras before and knew they were bigger than your average 35mm, but when he took this thing out of the case, I almost cried it was so huge. I've put a roll through it so far and it does take gorgeous images. I'll get some more taken and eventually scanned to share with y'all.