Limited to only 130 pieces, this special edition LOMO LC-A+ Gold is sweet!

My first TTV shot, cropped and adjusted in post.

One of the interesting photography projects in the book Camera Creative (read my review here) is Through The Viewfinder or TTV photography. This is when you mate a DSLR with a TLR camera, focusing and composing with the TLR and using your DSLR to capture the image on the TLR’s viewfinder. Hence, Through The Viewfinder.

Now, one normally needs to build what TTV enthusiasts call “The Contraption,” which serves as the umbilical mount between the two cameras, but I wanted to jump in right away. Here’s my first attempt shot freehand without a DIY mount.

Shooting through the lens of the TLR

Dememod

Just a quickie.

I’ve said before that, when using the Demekin, you have to be careful of your horizons. This being a fisheye camera that’s really tiny, it’s easy to get your horizons off.  To mitigate this, I bought an el cheapo level and doubletaped it to the top of the camera with the viewfinder as an added anchor point.

Easiest mod in the world. Total cost, 50 cents.

Fujicolor 110

The problem with cameras such as the Superheadz Demekin, my vote for 2009 Travelomo Camera of the Year, is that the damn things use obsolete film formats. This makes it impossible to just go into any camera store and buy a few rolls off the rack. Early last month I ran out of 110 film, having only about six shots left for a trip to Negros Occidental. The pity is that Negros Occidental is a beautiful place to shoot.

This Christmas break (for you non-Filipinos reading this, this means the entire week from Christmas Eve to January 3), my family and I are going up to Kiangan in Ifugao province, up in the mountains of the northern Philippines. It’s a beautiful place – we’ve been there twice before. Kiangan features gorgeous mountain vistas, great hiking terrain, a river where you can go whitewater rafting with verdant fields and ravines on both banks. A half-hour’s drive and you’ve got the Banawe Rice Terraces, which you’ve all seen on Discovery Travel & Living as well as many of the travel books which feature the Philippines.

It would be just sad if I failed to capture this on 110.

An emergency trip to the Oh Shoot Toy Camera store before hitting the office was in order. It was a risk going there because I had no idea if it would still be open this close to Christmas break. Good thing it was. Proprietor Jill Lejano was on-hand to sell me the 110 cartridges I needed. At 80 pesos a pop (US$1.70) for Fujicolor ASA 200s isn’t bad at all. However, Jill tells me that 110 film is getting increasingly hard to come by. That worries me because I use a lot of 110 film. Time to look for other sources. Eight rolls is more than enough for this trip. I also bought a spirit level to attach to the Demekin to keep my horizons straight. It’s not as easy as you think!

Oh Shoot's Eco-friendly Packaging

Anyway, this may be my last post until after Christmas so, Happy Holidays from me and Travelomo!

"The Ruins" is an old mansion owned by the Lacsons of Negros Occidental that was razed by USAFFE and guerrilla forces during the second world war to prevent the Japanese from using it as a headquarters.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I flew to Silay City in the province of Negros Occidental in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines. I had managed to book cheap seats and we thought it would be a good chance to visit our godmother, take in the sights and, uhm, binge on the excellent local cuisine.

Now, Silay is known as the “Paris of Negros,” a seat of Visayan culture and art, and has been declared a “museum city.” It has many well-preserved heritage mansions, which used to be where the sugar barons of the island lived, as well as old churches and buildings you can visit.

Along for the trip was my Superheadz Demekin which, sadly, had only a few shots left. The tough thing about 110 film is that it isn’t readily available from your corner photo store anymore. Despite Silay having its feet firmly anchored in old world charm, that didn’t extend to photography supplies.

Here then are the few shots I have on 110, shot in Silay and the adjacent city of Talisay. Next time I visit, I’ll make sure I put in my order for film way in advance.

My bad. I forgot to take down the name of this church.

As my wife often says, my memory is crap. Again, I forgot what this place is called. I took a photo of the sign, but I haven't yet downloaded it to this notebook. The place is wonderfully maintained, though, and is worth the visit, just to see how the sugar barons of the past lived.

The Ruins is currently in a state of meticulously-manicured, restored ruin, a venue for special events or an evening dinner at its cafe.

The place is located in Talisay City, not far from the Pepsi Cola plant. It's just about fifteen minutes' drive from Silay City.

I’ve known Mon Guinto the better part of my 37 years on the planet. He was a classmate in grade school and high school and was my “blood brother” in fifth grade. The quotation marks are there because we didn’t actually cut ourselves to make a blood compact; we just drew red circles on our wrists with a ball-point pen and made pretend.

A few years back he got bitten HARD by the Lomo bug and has grown into one of the finest Lomographers in the Philippines. His work has been published in several magazines and he’s also taken part in a few photography exhibits. This guy’s got a creative eye, excellent photographic taste and the technical skills to back it up. He also has a knack for playing Hangman during school functions.

Here are a few of his recent shots and links to some of his Multiply albums.

© Mon Guinto

© Mon Guinto

© Mon Guinto

Come Fly With Me

Paper Planes

Choppers & Chicks

Sure do hope they come out nice, whatever they may be.

I tried to do several low light time lapse sequences tonight but had focusing problems. This is the only one I am happy with.

If you go up this road, you will hit McKinley Hill, one of the swanky residential/commercial developments near our condo. Further up (this leads west), you’ll reach several Philippine Army buildings. This is Fort Bonifacio after all.

When I have an opportunity, I will revisit what I tried to shoot tonight but failed to capture.

I had meant to either hit the mountain bike trail or go boxing this afternoon, but the weekend call for lazy lounging about got the better of me.  Instead of getting physical, I chose instead to flex my photography muscles by setting up this shoot.

Taken from inside our condo, this is about an hour and a half worth of time lapse photos edited as a vertical video. The camera was behind the safety glass, hence the reflections and flare. One of these days, I’ll shoot this from the roof for a really clear view.

Gear used: Canon 350D, Phottix Intervalometer and a Sigma 70-300 f/4.0. Oh, and an el cheapo tripod.

Camera Creative

I was browsing the photography section at a local bookstore this afternoon when I stumbled upon a freshly stocked book titled Camera Creative. Written by Chris Gatcum, a former editor at What Digital Camera?, the book is a compilation of all the quaint tricks and techniques I’ve been dabbling in for the past few years – false tilt shift photography, light painting, lomography, plastic lenses, digital cross processing and then some.

Over four chapters, Gatcum describes 52 techniques/projects covering creative shooting, lens and accessory tricks, DIY lighting gear and the dark arts of digital post processing. Included are features on toy cameras and Holga hacks as well as el cheapo stereo photography, yay!

In the eight hours that I’ve owned this book I’ve only been able to read a few pages, but from what I’ve seen so far, Camera Creative is a great jump-off point for folks who like going against the grain. This isn’t a book for everyone, but the stuff in here will most definitely add a new unexpected dimension to your photography, if you apply the lessons well.  There’s a lot of cool things to try out.

As for me, I can’t wait to have a go at TTV photography. TTV stands for Through The Viewfinder, where you mate your digital camera to a TLR and shoot the image that appears on the TLR’s viewfinder. Such a cool hack, methinks. Will definitely post results once I build my “contraption” (it seems this is what the TTV community calls the DIY interface) and shoot. Meanwhile, here’s a TTV flickr group to keep you occupied.

If you’ve got a bookstore near you, give it a look. Otherwise, there’s always Amazon.com.