DAY 031

Today I used my Ikimono 110 camera to take not one but THREE pictures. I wasn't sure if the first one was going to come out well, so I took another, and I wasn't sure if that one was going to come out well, so I took another, and then I figured at least one out of the three would come out well, so I stopped.

The first is a picture of a broom on our front steps. (Oops, missed the broom! The hardest thing about this camera is figuring out where you're aiming the lens.)

The second is a picture of those gorgeous pink flowers that always blossom at UCLA this time of year. (Also missed the flowers, for the most part. Dammit.)

The third is of a couple of bobbleheads from the CEC office, one comprised of a Barbie head on a soldier's body. (Sadly, this photo didn't come out. Maybe it was too dark inside? Still, I'm not convinced. Hmm...)

DAY 030

I used my dad's old Olympus (The Tank!) again for today's picture. It's of a glass of water on a table in our apartment. There's a slight shadow extending from the base of the cup and a ring of light circling the glass due to the reflection of the water. I hope it comes out as good as it looked through the viewfinder!

This will look lovely when I display it with a projector.

DAY 029

More practice with the technique that Adam showed me! The lovely Loosine:

DAY 028

I figured it was time to go back to the camera that first got me into photography! Today I took a picture of an empty kombucha bottle and its shadow on a pale wooden table in our apartment, using my dad's old Olympus OM-1 MD. He bought this camera when he was in college and took it with him when he studied in Poland. It's hard to believe that this camera is still in one piece! It has survived rock climbing without a rope with crazy revolutionaries, backpacking through Europe, multiple plane rides to multiple American states, more than a decade of storage, and being dropped way too many times from my clumsy fingers. The thing is a tank.

DAY 027

DAY 026

For lack of better subject material today, I took a picture of my picture of pasta (my dinner) draining in a red colander in our white sink with various dirty dishes surrounding it. I used my Vivitar Viewpoint, which I bought at a thrift store for $3. It's a horrible and cheap 35mm camera that has a limited range of focus but turns out photos with intense, super-saturated color. Ordinary shots come out in technicolor! I don't know how it manages to do this. Also, it has a knack for making people look their worst, as it will reveal every blemish on your face with its blinding flash. Still, I love it.

DAY 025

First official longboard club meeting of the quarter! It turned out even better than I hoped because a ton of people came out (always more exciting) and I learned some new photography tricks! Adam taught me how to adjust the ISO, find the right aperture and shutter speed, turn on manual focus, and pan the camera to get good longboarding-in-action shots. That way, the longboarder should remain in focus while the background becomes blurred. Who knew that there was so much to know about photography?

DAY 024

A charming portrait of the hair on my knees:

DAY 023

An epic day of adventure! We set out to film the first part of Alex's film, and the weather was perfect. Conor drove us around about half of LA trying to find good places to shoot Ernesto on the "motorcycle" that Alex and I crafted. We ended up in Venice, Brentwood, Santa Monica and more! On San Vicente, a runner passing by yelled at Ernesto, calling him a pussy. We saw about a million dogs almost everywhere we went and I fell in love with all of them. I still have sand under my toenails from running into the ocean and my feet are a little raw from my sandals. Anyway, I'll link to the film as soon as it's finished! In the meantime, here are some highlights:

And here's a one-eyed, snaggle-toothed, so-ugly-it's-cute dog that we saw outside of the McDonalds where we ate breakfast!

DAY 022

For the first time during this challenge, I forgot to bring a camera out with me and I felt naked. I kept seeing things I wanted to look at through the lens but then realized I didn't have a camera with me. So, when I got back to the apartment, I took about a million photos of my plant. This is Jerry/Geri (since it's a plant, I'm not sure if it's a boy or a girl). I bought it at the dollar store back in September and have been taking care of it ever since. I'm not even sure what kind it is and it has yet to do anything interesting, like produce flowers or fruit, but I'm continually amazed by it. It grows so fast - three weeks ago, it only had two leaves! (The rest fell off during the drive back home for winter break.) Take a look:

DAY 021

I tried unsuccessfully to get a good picture of the bicycle that I've been attempting for the past couple hours to make look like a motorcycle. So, instead, I offer a picture of my sheets from this morning. I love how they look, wrinkled up with the light falling over the creases. I'm obsessed with beautiful lighting and, luckily, one of the best places for that is our apartment. We somehow ended up with windows in all the right places! As much as I hate waking up early for classes, the mornings here are beautiful.

DAY 020

Today I used my little Ikimono camera to take a picture of a puddle nestled outside of the Humanities building. I actually ended up having to take two photos because I wasn't sure if I had aimed the camera correctly the first time because the camera is so small! (It literally fits in the palm of my hand - it's barely bigger than the film that it uses.) I really like this camera because it uses 110 film, which turns out gorgeous, richly-hued photos even though it's really expensive to develop. The funny thing is that it was actually more popular than 35mm film for a while, but 35mm eventually won out and now it costs a lot more to get a roll of 110 film developed. Still, I'm such a sucker that I'll cough up the cash for it. Film is kind of like my kryptonite. (For some reason, only one of the shots came out. Oops? I wonder what happened to the other one...)

DAY 019

I tried cooking these sausage-stuffed potato things today. Even though the preparation process was terrible (two and a half hours! for three potatoes!), they ended up pretty tasty and I was more than satisfied. Unfortunately, they weren't very photogenic. For lack of a better photo of them, this is what they looked like before I broiled them and that nasty-looking pink sauce turned all golden and delicious:

DAY 018

DAY 017

DAY 016

Promenade today: lovely shadows.

And even though I was there in the dressing room and I took this picture, I still can't figure it out. How many mirrors were there?

DAY 015

On the way back from Buffalo Exchange I spotted a cat, so, naturally, I had to go pet it. The cat made me chase after it for a while until it plopped down on a driveway, belly to the sky. When I started shooting the camera, the cat would freeze up before each shot, then move before the next one. He was posing for me!

DAY 014

GZA concert, put on by CEC: a lot of horrible photos, some decent ones, one good one. But it was damn fun. Time to bust out the manual and learn how to use this thing!

DAY 013

Today I took photos for the Rumspringa concert, put on by CEC. For a moment, I had a minor fantasy about getting to photograph things like this all the time, getting free access to concerts and other awesome events. But back to reality: I tried to get as many shots as possible in 15 minutes, without getting in people's way and being that kind of photographer, the awkward one who has like five cameras slung about his or her neck, always creeping up front and squatting down and generally just getting in the way. However, looking over the photos now I'm starting to realize what kinds of shots work and what kinds don't. The shots that I thought looked boring actually turned out kind of cool when you see them full-size. Learning experience! Here's one of the better shots:

DAY 012

Oh, man. The problem with this whole photo-a-day thing is that it's supposed to be one photo a day, and in order to get one good photo, I end up taking 20 or more, and out of those 20, I usually like more than just one. I just want to post frickin' everything! But I need enough ideas and photos to get through 365 days, and I'm only on day 12. This is going to be more of a challenge than I expected...

Anyway! Mutant strawberry and my hands:

DAY 011

DAY 010

We have reached the double digits of this challenge! It feels like an accomplishment but it's really only been 10 days. That's not even two weeks!

Today consisted of participating in the Los Angeles faction of the No Pants Subway Ride 2010, which is held in 14 regions in 16 countries across the world. We got off the Metro at Hollywood and Highland, which is right smack dab in the tourist center of LA. We posed for tourists. It was also funny because the usual tourist attractions (the people dressed up as characters, like Michael Jackson and Marilyn Monroe and Captain Jack Sparrow) were taking pictures of us!

Also, I spotted Paul Dano in a nearby In-N-Out. I was too excited and too chicken to say hi so I took a picture instead. Notice the creepy stalker-status behind-the-foliage viewpoint.

DAY 009

Today was so epic that it deserves four photographs.

First, Accomplice! The first picture is from when we were trying to get clues from Elmo. I took my small Sony camera and tried to take pictures secretly because I didn't want to get yelled at. Here, half of the frame is taken up by Rachel's purse but I like how you can still tell that it's Elmo in the background. Very creepy.

This is what our feet looked like when we were trying to decipher the Joan Crawford clue:

And this is Nikki's finger!

Next, I went with Laraine, Mary, and Sarah to the Nick Cave opening party at the Fowler. I touched the artwork when the security guards weren't looking and took forbidden photos.

DAY 008

DAY 007

A lot of things happened today that would've made good pictures of the day but unfortunately I didn't bring my camera with me. (The Hammer! Michael Cera! White Elephant!) So! Today's picture was taken with my Fisheye while longboarding to class, on that northern part of campus sort of near Dodd. I was longboarding at the time so I'm hoping that it looks like an action shot, but I'm pretty sure it won't. Oh well.

DAY 006

Today I used my dad's old Olympus to take a picture of the sunset, as seen from our balcony. There were some students across the way yelling some things down from their balcony to people below. I wasn't sure if they were yelling insults or greetings, but it felt nice to be back in that college atmosphere where there's almost always someone yelling something, whether it's due to the over-consumption of alcohol or the stress of nearing finals. It's comforting to be surrounded by the noise of people going through the exact same things as you are.

I'll post the photo as soon as I get it developed!

Ahh, apologies for the current crappy quality of this! I don't have a slide scanner and I don't want to pay to get prints, so photographs of the slides with have to do for now! And so much for this being a picture of the "sunset."

DAY 005

Shortly after midnight, Laraine lost her contact.

But it was found!

DAY 004

Today's photo hasn't been developed yet, so I can't post it. But I can describe it! I used my Ikimomo 110 film camera to take a photo of the top of the escalator at LACMA, where it looks like you're about to exit right into the sky. Fingers crossed that it comes out well... (It did, in my opinion!)

DAY 003

Back in LA! I found these two magazines sitting like this on our coffee table. I really liked how they both had pretty hands and pretty faces and that they were just sitting next to each other as if it were no big deal.

DAY 002

It's the last day home before I drive back to LA tomorrow, so I went out to eat with my family (minus Brooks) at an Italian place. It's probably the best thing I'll eat for about three months. After this, it's all EasyMac and disastrous attempts at stir-fry! This is what it looked like walking to the restaurant:

Also! Gratuitous photo showing how I've been abusing my longboard. Coffee to whoever can name all the songs without googling the lyrics!

DAY 001

Happy New Year! Let the photo-a-day challenge officially begin!