say hello, sharris;

i know, i did say that i would be getting my holga on monday, but guess what.

say hello to sharris, my latest baby, the holga135blackcorner. (don’t ask about the name.)

it was ready for collection yesterday already, so why the hell should i wait?

i went to collect it during photography outing, we were around bugis so i left the group together with ben and li, and went to burlington square’s triple d. collected the camera, bought film, jammed the roll into the camera, and started shooting.

we proceeded to get lost, we were supposed to meet up with the others at haji lane, which i must say is a nice place, but we ended up walking in effing circles round the place. we took about almost 2 hours before we met up and i almost burnt through my entire first roll of film.

well, i’ve already sent it for processing, shall upload the pictures to photobucket, deviantart and my lomohome later. i shall post the links here, and my fav pic.

look for it!

loves, larris.

click.

hello readers.

guess what. i’ve ordered my camera, the holga 135BC, off the online store, http://8storeytree.com, and i’ll be heading down to triple d on monday to collect it (don’t wana pay for postage and wana check the cam first).

i’ve been bitten recently by the photobug, or more accurately, the LOMO bug. what’s a lomo? you ask.

story cut short, its a russian camera that has expanded into a huge company, taking cool cameras and refurbishing them, and other stuff as well.

anyway, i’ve always had this keen interest in photography, but never really jumped onto it until my friend showed me his lomo lc-a+ (lomo compact automat). a film camera, shockingly simple, but marvelous enough to get me totally head over heels in love with photography.

sounds pretty extremist, but since then, i’ve been researching so much about lomos and holgas, and what not. i’ve even joined the photography club in ngee ann poly.

there’s such something different about lomography (photography using lomos) and film photography in general that draws me to it, much more so than digital photography. ask me why.

“why?” you ask.

why? well, the quality of film, for one thing, completely overshadows that of the digital image. digital images uses pixels, which in my opinion, isn’t quite as remarkable as film (although usually i’d upload the film photos into the computer, therefore rendering it to pixels. contradictive much?).

another thing would be the value of the shots. with modern technology today, you can’t walk down orchard road without seeing at least 5 people carrying DSLRs (digital single-lens reflex), and usually contained in these DSLRs are the wonders of technology, and also the 4GB memory card, which gives the photographer an ass load of shooting.

the film camera, however, uses film (DUH). each roll of film allows you 36 shots. and might i remind you that a roll of normal 35mm film these days costs about six bucks in vivocity. because you only have 36 shots, each shot would mean more to you than a thousand shots from a DSLR. of course, this is subjective, your opinion may differ from mine.

there’s just a different feeling when you collect those prints from the photo lab, it gives me a whole lot more satisfaction when you go through the 36 prints and find about 10 nice shots, rather than being able to take a million photos and see whether its crappy or not straightaway (read: DSLR).

perhaps it’s the anticipation that makes it fun. after all, they always say good things are worth waiting for.

i remember my first camera. before the days of digital convenience, way back in 1998 (or is it 1999, 2000?). i was in the phillipines at that time, visiting my family. and i got my first camera as a free toy from jollibee, a fast food restaurant that makes kickass burgers. uber pawnage.

the feeling it gave me, when i took my first picture, clicked the wheel to advance the film, and to turn the thingamajig to reel back the film, and then! seeing my lousy ass pictures when it was developed (i was real young then), it can never be replaced with whatever i have today. i’ve used a canon ixus since, and not once has it filled me with the same wonder.

oh, did i mention? it was a looney toons camera. double kill!

uber cute.

so that being said.

good things are worth waiting for.

’til monday, my holga 135 black corner!

_________________________________________________

photo 1&2 source: http://lomographyasia.com

the first.

so today was FUN two thousand and eight.

and even though it is so expected already i’m still going to say it.

it was FUN.

there i said it. i came clean, now i expect lots of comments saying i’m lame and that i should totally move my carcass out of ngee ann poly.

but honestly speaking, it was real good and wholesome (okay, maybe not so wholesome) FUN.

we cheered, we screamed, we danced, and we fought, but most importantly, we BONDED.

we may have not won anything, but you know this as well as i do, we won in heart.

we won because we’ve formed friendships and come this far.

we won because we weren’t afraid to come out of our shell and yell our lungs out.

we won because we didn’t give a shit about what the other faculties thought about us, we are the fms students, dammit, and we dont give a hoot if you hate us.

OKAY, bitchy statements aside, it’s time to input some thoughts into this ramble.

now, although it was fun and all, what i realized was that you can only have as much fun as you allow yourself to.

you can’t expect to go as a spectator, sit down, stone and keep mum, and expect to have as much fun if you were going completely insane shouting your head off and trying to get the whole crowd to do the dynamite cheer with you.

speaking of the dynamite cheer, we didn’t do it all today, it was pretty depressing.

as i was saying, how much fun you get is how much you want it.

take me for example, i wasn’t going to be all quiet and low profile in ngee ann poly fms, like i was in the good old secondary school days (trust me, low profile was a good thing then.) so i had the idea in my head, that i wasn’t going to keep myself in a shell here at ngee ann, but rather explode in a ball of furry fun.

what i learnt throught the orientations i went through is that you should always be yourself, and if people don’t like it, too bad for them. because i’ve realized that one of the worse things you can do to yourself is to compromise yourself for the sake of making people accept you, when they should be accepting you for who you are.

sadly to say (or type, for this matter), many people these days are like that. with the boundaries society has set around them, they bend in to conformity and lose their identity entirely. this is why we have large “social groupings”, such as bengs, muts, lians and the like. a bunch of people conforming to the same “ideals” that they become somewhat similar.

of course, this is all just an objective point of view.

you can’t really blame all these people, no matter how fun it is. i would never know why anyone would want to be what they’re not, but i can think of plenty reasons that would come close.

1. they just don’t have enough self-confidence. either their upbringing was filled with putdowns and discouragement, or they don’t get any encouragement from their parents at all.
2. they are pressured into doing it, like if they don’t, they aren’t considered cool.

of course, i have many reasons (not), but the root of the problem always comes back to confidence.

even at fun08, you can see those who are really confident of themselves, taking the risk of putting themselves in front of so many to just to make things enjoyable.

but, overconfidence is another issue entirely. perhaps i should talk about that another time.

this is larris, signing off.

p.s.: i seriously need a shower, and school starts at 8 tomorrow *groans*, but it is 4 hours of studio production!!!! i can’t wait, seriously.