Photos from the camera I built...

The title for this post alone makes me happy... a camera I built. I'm still amazed about that... anyway, here are the photos. I love Leeds in the Autumn, especially around Kirkstall Abbey, its the perfect place to test cameras.




{one of my favourite photos of the abbey yet...}








I have a great feeling about this camera - it's everything a plastic toy camera should be - it's fun, it's experimental, it's unique and it gives some interesting effects. It's easy to do multiple exposures and I love the lens flare. It's light, compact and it feels even better in your hands for knowing how it's constructed and also for the knowledge that it has a missing screw somewhere
(haha, oops, the instructions are fun to decipher...)

You can see the entire set of photos on Flickr here.
(Dad, click there! When you finally read this :p )


Have a great weekend!!

p.s. I think I'm blinking in the girls photos, oops. The perils of analogue photography :)

We made a camera!

Introducing my YELLOW gakkenflex camera, made by myself and my friends over the weekend. (And I have photos taken with it too for tomorrow's post, which means it worked and I am excited!)

I'd seen photos taken with this camera by my fellow camera enthusiast friends Unai and Cesar and they both used it for their photoswap photos too (see here and here.) I was totally captivated by the idea that it was a camera that you built yourself from a kit and I knew that I had to have one and luckily I got one for my birthday from these lovely ladies (they spoil me).

So here are some photos of us putting it together for your amusement.


{the shutter, just 4 bits of plastic and 3 springs, so clever!}



Ta da!! And to finish off, some fun (kind of) TTV photos...



This camera was so fun to put together, especially as some of the instructions weren't translated correctly (right was left, left was right etc) so we had to guess a lot from the photos but I highly recommend it if you want to try it.

Also the yellow is amazing... I love it so much!

p.s. I'm totally rocking the sock bun and also I have new red boots which I love.

p.p.s. the shutter sounds amazing, especially as I know how it works now.

Forgotten Film...

Way back in April 2010 we went on a long weekend away with our parents (both sets, they get on, its awesome) and on the way back, we stopped at Castle Howard which I blogged about at the time. However I completely forgot that as well as taking my fuji instax mini, we also took my Dad's Olympus OM-10 and we never finished the roll... and then, we completely forgot that it was still in the camera. For well over a year... disaster.

However, I accidently finished it over the weekend (playing with the camera, like you do) and here are the photos from that lovely day at Castle Howard... though neither Thomas or I can actually remember who took the photos.



{I remember taking the photo on the right, how beautiful is the light! Shame we still haven't figured out the shutter speeds lol}


Aren't the daffodils just amazing? I forgot how many that there were.

I always find the OM-10 quite intimidating compared to my little plastic cameras as there are so many settings but I always love the results from it. Perhaps we should use it more.

Painting with light...

After seeing Laura and Tom's photos about experimenting with the camera settings on her digital camera, Thomas and I decided to see if we could figure out light painting on his Sony H7 camera on the beach.



{an attempt at writing my name!}




The good news is that we figured out how to do it, the bad news is that we're not that great at making it look good yet lol. I can't wait to experiment further with it, perhaps we'll get photos as lovely as Laura's next time!

Paris in film: Ilford XP2 Part 1 (of many I expect...)

Have I told you that I love Ilford XP2 film with my diana mini? I'm sure I have...
In fact, it was the only film I used with this camera in Paris as I knew I would just love the results with it and I was not disappointed!



These photos are around the streets of Paris, I wanted to capture as much of them as I could and I just love how they turned out.

Location: Paris
Camera: Diana Mini
Film: Ilford XP2 iso 400

Thomas's Favourite Paris Photos

Hello readers, It's Thomas here sharing my final favourite photos from Paris. I hope you are enjoyed looking at the photos that myself and Rhianne took, it was really a wonderful holiday, and one that I don’t think I will ever forget.

There were so many highlights that I cannot even think to list them all, Paris is such an amazing, vibrant city. It was impossible to not be inspired by the beautiful architecture and just the general ‘feel’ of the place. We both mentioned during the week how it was no wonder that some of the worlds most creative people came from and lived in Paris. It had this vibe that was almost electric, there was something in the air all the time (apart from the great smell of food) that was indescribable and I hope that both myself and Rhianne captured that in our photos.


{the crowds, Anna Calvi and Lykke Li at Rock en Seine}



I love taking photos (maybe not quite as much as Rhianne) but more than anything I love sharing them, looking through them and reliving all the wonderful memories and im sure we will be doing that for years to come and it has been a real privilege to share some of these photos with you. I can imagine Rhianne will share many more photos and stories of our trips to Paris (and our future travels as well I can expect).

Also, before I go, I would just like to say a big big thank you to all the amazing people that Rhianne has met on For the easily distracted. I have also been so lucky to meet Adele and Wendy who were both lovely people. It is so fantastic to hear Rhianne talk about you, she is always showing me your wonderful posts and photos on different blogs. I really hope that you enjoy reading it as much as she does writing it and taking hundreds and hundreds of photos for it.

Have a great weekend!
Thomas