Just closed out another month of photos for Project 365. I missed a few days here and there, mostly because the day was bo-ring and I was lazy.

Ten more months to go… eesh.

We went to the late-night flea market (8pm-2am) at the fairgrounds the other day. I picked up a Ricoh Auto Shot to add to my collection. Normally I only buy cameras that I check beforehand to make sure they’re usable… even though they’re in my collection I like to shoot a roll to test the camera out, and see the results.

This new camera though, I was unable to test. When I opened the back I saw that there was a roll of film loaded in there.

So I plopped down my $5 for the camera and took it home and developed the film. It was Plux-X Pan, so I developed it in the kitchen sink.

Unfortunately, there were only two images on the roll:

As for the camera? It doesn’t work.

Took some photos last night of AF-Kin. Click the image below to see the whole set.

About a month ago I started what’s known as Project 365. Simply, you take a self portrait each day for 365 days.

I’ve done it for twenty-eight days so far. I’m not totally excited about each and every photo — a lot of days I’m getting ready for bed and think “oh shit, I need to take a photo,” but the important thing is that I haven’t skipped a day yet. Only 337 more to go.

Clicking on the image above will bring you to the set. I’ll be adding one photo to it each day so keep checking back (on Flickr, I won’t be updating here often).

Today was Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, a day when — as indicated by the name — people all over the world go out with a pinhole camera and shoot photos.

The original plan was to go to Six Flags (it’s opening weekend) to shoot since the subject matter is a lot more interesting than stuff around the house or the scummy retention pond out back. But we had a late night — we made it home sometime after 3am from the Halo party at Kevin’s house — so we got a late start on the day. Justin actually didn’t get to sleep until almost 5:30am because he had to drive his parents to the airport at 4:30am. Then I check and the park closed at 5pm … so we decided to skip it. Instead we went to Justin’s parents’ house so I could photograph some flowers and such.

I’m submitting the image below to the pinholeday.org gallery; it’s my favorite of the batch. Once it’s approved you can see it on their site here.

You can see the rest of the shots I took today right here.

I need a new scanner. I have an Epson Perfection 3170 Photo which has been my faithful home-photo-lab companion for years. But I think a bulb burned out in the lid, because if you look at the photos above you’ll notice a dark band across the center of the image. It’s only an issue when scanning medium format negatives — 35mm and flatbed are fine — so I’m hesitant to throw it out since it works great otherwise. Maybe I’ll give it to someone who won’t need to use it for transparencies.

I’d love to get a dedicated negative scanner but I don’t have a grand or two lying around to spare. So I’ll probably get the more reasonably priced Epson 4490.

I had to laugh at my mom’s comment on a photo I posted on Flickr — “Totally F****** AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!” If my mom likes it that much, it can’t be a bad tattoo, right?

Yes, I got another tattoo. It’s a big ‘un … though it only took about 2.5 hours to complete. It was done by Ahren Bloomquist at Lucky 7 in Libertyville, IL. I am extremely happy and excited about how it turned out.

The tattoo is based on an illustration from Juan Valverde de Amusco’s Anatomia del corpo humano, which in turn is based upon (or stolen from) Andreas Vesalius’ De corporis humani fabrica libri septem.

I totally didn’t realize at first that I used the plagerized illustration. I would have chosen the original image just on principle… except I like Valverde’s version of it more. :::shrugs::: They’re practically identical and besides, they’re over 500 years old so I doubt that it matters.

Today I’m a bit sore. My shirt sleeve is irritating the lower portion a bit (right around the elbow) so it’s red and bleeding a bit in spots. I can’t wait until it’s healed…

I was invited to another media event at KeyLime Cove by Colleen with Public Communications Inc. The event took place last week on Thursday February 28th and Friday February 29th. I was very excited to be invited back to see how the place shaped up — it was pretty bare-bones the last time I saw it.

You can skip ahead to my final opinion if you don’t care about the details… or continue reading about our KeyLime Cove experience…

Today I dug out the Polaroid camera (I think it was a Square Shooter) that I had hacked up a few years ago in an attempt to make a Polaroid back for my Holga (I stopped the project because coincidentally I got Holaroid from Craigslist right after I started hacking).

I cut off the bulk of the front of the camera, covered the big hole with some foam and gaffer’s tape, and stuck a pinhole on the front (the pinhole was made from a section of a soda can).

I didn’t measure the size of the pinhole or the focal length, so I have no idea what the approximate aperture is — and therefore have no ballpark idea how long my exposures should be. I took two test photos inside the house — each exposure was for about five minutes (another thing I didn’t measure).

Interesting subject, I know.

I really, really like this camera. Everything is relatively sharp (Polaroids and pinholes generally are a bit fuzzy by default), and the view is extremely wide angle. The camera was on the edge of the sink, so only about 1-2 feet away from the faucet, but look how far away it looks!

The wall was about 2-3 feet away from the camera in the above photo. This demonstrates just how wide of an angle this camera has — you can see both the front door (left) and the King Kong poster on the stairs on the right. Well, you can see it in the actual print; the scan isn’t the greatest.

I can’t wait to test this camera outside… and I’m definitely shooting with this camera for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (April 27th, mark your calendars).