Field

Field, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

I took this on Christmas Day, somewhere out in the countryside west of town. We'd had some snow the previous days, and a cold snap had finally caused the trees to shed the last of their leaves. The skies were a solid overcast, almost exactly the same shade of white as the snow that covered the now bare fields. It was stark, almost monochromatic, a typical Midwestern winter scene.

Tree

Tree, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Tree

Tree, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Hang around with a certain sort of photog long enough, and you hear about something called a Diana. The Diana camera is a cheap, plastic camera, with a plastic meniscus lens, a leaf shutter, and zone focusing via little icons on the lens barrel. They were originally made in Hong Kong in the sixties, and were usually imported as giveaways for raffles and opening bank accounts, that sort of thing. The are really distinct looking, black plastic with a turquoise top and a shiny lens barrel with DIANA writ large across the front.

Dianas take medium format 120 film, and their lenses have a peculiar, lo-fi effect that's usually called "dreamy" but is sometimes just called "fuzzy" or "not really sharp at all". Between the artifacts and stuff like vignettes and light leaks, Diana cameras have a unique fingerprint.

Anyway, the Diana camera became beloved for it's uniquely flawed prints, and eventually went back into production, in various formats and with different lenses available, just like a real camera. You can even get Diana lenses with adapters for your fancypants DSLR. Which is exactly what I did here, since I haven't got a darkroom and am tired of sending 120 film away and waiting two weeks.

TL;DR, I took this picture of a tree with a cheap plastic lens.

Sunset

Sunset, originally uploaded by William 74.

Fun with silhouettes! I guess that's one nice thing about winter and spring-the trees are still bare and stand out really well against the sky. Particularly a sunset like this one.

Excellent cloud day too.

Clipped Redux

Clipped, originally uploaded by William 74.

Another day, another sad, decrepit old car. I've visited the Clipper a few times, and shown it here at least once. I can't help but be a little sad at the sight of it, covered in dead leaves and mold, slowly going to ground.