The annual fretting over what cameras to take to Louisiana has begun. (And to a lesser extent, what shoes.) When I went last summer for Granny’s birthday I only brought the Holga, so this time I think I’ll bring the Diana F+, with both the regular and 35mm backs. I’m hoping someone gets me the Golden Half camera (pleasepleaseplease) for Christmas, so I don’t think I need to bring any other trick cameras. Umm, maybe the Pop 9. It’s small. Or perhaps the Oktomat, which I’ve barely used since I bought it. Aaargh.
Okay, the F+ and the Oktomat. And the digital and Instax, which I bring everywhere anyway, so it goes without saying. But if I don’t get the Golden Half, I’m going to be piiiiissed that I didn’t bring the Pop 9.
Last night I was organizing stuff and stumbled across a stash of film I didn’t even know I had. I must have put it in one our family’s infamous “safe places” (translation: Forget all about it until you stumble across it up to a decade later) when I moved. I found 3 rolls of 35mm color, 2 rolls of 35 mm redscale, 3 rolls of 35mm color slide, a pack of Instax, and a roll of 120 B&W Ilford. But I still hope I get all the film I asked for for Christmas, because you can seriously never have too big a film stash. It all gets used eventually.
This isn't my photo, the roll is still in the camera
I haven’t shot the F+ in months, and this morning was a beautiful sunny interlude between rainstorms (although it started getting overcast around noon). So I slapped the 35mm back onto it and loaded it with a roll of Lomography ISO 400. (Shut up, I like their 35mm film. And I don’t think it’s all that expensive.) And practically the first thing I saw upon leaving the house was that one of my neighbors had stuck about 2 dozen pink plastic lawn flamingos all over their front yard.
Leave the house with a camera, and you will be rewarded. You just have to keep your eyes open.
ETA: I think the flamingos were actually a prank, because they were never there before — I walk past that house twice a day on my way to and from the bus stop, I think I would have noticed — and they were gone when I came home in the afternoon. Not to mention you’d have to be crazy to put that many lawn flamingos on your lawn; they were so close together you couldn’t even have walked between them. They’d have to be taken out every time you mowed.
If you think about it, that’s really a hilariously bizarre way to prank someone. And it’s not even mean in the way that egging or TPing someone’s house would be.
A California Yankee in King Cake's Court 