Spring Radish Harvest

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Polaroid Automatic Land Camera 100, Fuji FP-100c

Our three-year-old planted some radish seeds in paper cups at his day care nearly two months ago.  A couple weeks later he brought the seedlings home and we planted them in our nearly empty garden box.

He has excitedly watered them every day since, in the morning or in the afternoon.  Now here we are with the fruits… er, make that vegetables of his labor harvested!

The weather has been warming up here and the sun is seeming brighter.  This makes me think that it is pack film season again, as for some reason I am more inclined to use my Polaroid Automatic Land Cameras when it is nice and hot out.

The instant pack film really likes direct sunlight, and develops better (or at least faster) when it isn't cold.  It is probably just a psychological barrier, but I tend not to use it in the winter months.

I took this shot using the close-up adapter which lets you get right up to your subject.  I could have actually gotten closer, but wanted to frame the radishes along with their greens.

The depth of field gets very shallow the closer you get, so while the front of the leaves are in focus the rest is blurred to one extent or another.  I like the effect in this case as it focuses attention on the details in the greens.

My Dad gave me the camera, its official Polaroid case, and a handful of accessories some time back.  I have gradually collected the rest of its vintage accessories and now my collection is complete!

I am overdue for a vintage equipment post so will have to show it all off some time soon.

Mother’s Day Donuts

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Polaroid Automatic Land Camera 100, Fuji FP100-c

Happy Mother's Day to all you Mothers out there!

We started our celebration today with some Stan's Donuts.  Later we will have a picnic and visit a few shops my Dear Sweet Wife has been hoping to check out.

I gave my DSW a copy of Instant Love, a brand new book about Polaroid and instant photography.  I pre-ordered it months ago when Amanda Gilligan (one of the authors) posted about it in her blog Mocking Bird, and by luck it came just in time for Mother's Day.

My DSW has always been a fan of her SX-70 and lately her Fuji Instax Mini.  We just glanced through the new book and it seems to cover a lot of ground, we can't wait to start reading it in earnest.

Fuji's color pack film rendered the above donuts so nicely!  Its color is tough to beat in nice sunlight, and really knocks out the expired Spectra film I used last time around.

I think I should have compensated a bit for the parallax error since I was shooting so close.  I tried centering the plate in the composition, but since the viewfinder is on top of the camera the parallax error shifted the image downwards.

Oh well, the only solution is to practice more shooting with rangefinder/viewfinder cameras… Does that mean more donuts?