A Treasury Of… Minneapolis Fashion and Interior Design Blog

Next week I’m eligible to upgrade my phone, which I’m only partially excited about because the subpar camera on my iPhone 3GS has taken some really above-par images the past year that it’s been stashed in my pocket. The fuzzed up photos it captures I’ve found to be rather dreamy and almost Polaroid-like. (With or without post-effects apps.)

I’m crossing my fingers that the three extra megapixels, better optics, and built-in flash that’ll be heading into my hand next week won’t perfect away all the awesome imperfections I’ve gotten so used to.

Because I don’t really want to document my daily life in crisp, accurate reality. I want to keep capturing it abstracted and veiled, like it all took place 25-extra years ago on the sets of strange Sissy Spacek movies.

Speaking of which, I now present a series of never-before-seen images from the past seventeen months, taken and never Tweeted while on the sets of strange Sissy Spacek movies while I lazily lived my life.

Goodbye, ol’ phone!

In prepping for Paris, I could (after four years) no longer postpone purchasing a new and perfect digital camera. I had been eyeing the hunky chunky Canon G10′s and G11′s for over a year, but at almost $500, until they shoot HD Video, I figured I should hold out. I also considered the Canon S90 with a ring around the lense the user can assign to adjust either exposure, ISO, or focus – but after finally trying one out this past weekend, the ring seemed clicky, clunky and surprisingly inconvenient.

I ended up opting for a camera that wasn’t really ever on my radar screen – the Canon SD1400, and here is why:

First off, it’s awesomely pocketable. There’s already a D-SLR in my house, so it’s nice to have something on the way other end of the size spectrum.

Initially I thought it was almost too small, but after firing some test shots in the store, I noticed that when the flash fired, it didn’t fry out the image into white, hot, horribleness. The camera automatically dials down the force of the flash, depending on the shooting conditions, to ensure un-ugly images. The camera was tiny, but it was proving to be quite quick and ultra clever.

At 14 megapixels and $279 dollars, while still at the store, I went online quickly to see if there were similar Canon models with less pixels and for less pennies, and of course there were. But those models didn’t have my new favorite shooting mode/effect: Miniature.

Used to replicate the Photoshop tilt/shift effect that transforms ordinary cityscapes into seemingly scaled-down miniature sets from movies, applying this shooting mode isn’t just awesome for wide, outdoor shots of streets and oak trees.

It’s just as enchanting using indoors and close-up, for mega-macro close-ups or almost Holga-like abstractions of ordinary, straight-on set-ups. (You might need to click and enlarge the images to properly witness the full miniature effect.)

So with a D-SLR, my Lomo LC-A, and my new pocket-powerhouse SD1400 from Canon set for departure, I’ll be able to obnoxiously over-photograph every pastry, peony and park bench I come upon in Paris.

I wasn’t kind to this little camera when it first presented itself to me.

First off, I scorned its lack of a built-in flash, and being that it arrived without a manual no matter which golden dial I turned or tweaked, I couldn’t even open the blasted thing to load a test roll of film.

The device was demoted unceremoniously to knick-knack status, but since then, it’s become one of my favorite objets décoratifs. Like an opulent little czar it roosts regally near my front door illiciting wide-eyed oohs and ahhs from nearly all who enter.

I tried today once again to unlock its mystifying film chamber but still it refused to budge. I no longer curse its opulent uselessness, however. I’ve plenty of plain and plasticky cameras to get, you know…productive with. My snaky little Leica deserves to just sit about in lazy, good-looking luxury and otherwise not do a thing.

This weekend I developed a roll of 35 mm film and found some pre-Labor Day photos I’d taken with my Lomo LC-A, including images of my first (of two) visits to the Minnesota State Fair.

One of my favorite places at the fair is the Agriculture building. The first reason is that the signage and the restrooms are all as they were 50 years ago.

The second reason is the gradient jars of ribbon-winning honeys.

I only rode one midway ride this year, and it wasn’t the Kamikaze – but its red, white, and blue flashing lights were a joyride of their own.

An unremarkable rabbit who did nothing to warrant being photographed.

The view from our sunset SkyRide. Half the fun is waiting in line and hoping you get assigned your favorite gondola color. (Faded Retro Turquoise. But I think we got stuck with Boring Grass Green.)

I spent my arctic childhood winters taking indoor swimming lessons at the local YMCA. I graduated from the Minnows class all the way up through Porpoise, five or six years later, and still love to just float at the bottom of a swimming pool as if its my home.

I haven’t known how to feel toward digital still cameras that shoot video, even HD video, and list the feature as a wonderful perk. How does the quality and the control compare to shooting with an actual video camera? It’s just never seemed worth getting excited about.

But the new-ish Canon PowerShot D10 shoots stills and video (muffled pre-shark-attack air bubbling audio included) under water! For around three $100 bills. Now that’s something I can dive into.

It’s not possible to go swimming without a silly smile swerving around your face, and it’d be impossible not to watch back the footage from a fish eye’s view without that stupid smile showing up again.

Here’s one lucky D10 owner’s recent aquatic clip. (Almost looks like Super8 or something!) YouTube has plenty more splashy video blasts. Just search for Canon D10.

The EP-1, a revised version of the tan ‘n glam Micro Four Thirds camera I featured in one of my very first Treasury entries will be officially announced to the hungry world tomorrow.

‘Til then, marvel at its nifty, neutralized color palette, and contemplate its rumored $900 price tag.

My Lomo film camera’s been pretty reliable so far. This fuzzy photo taken sometime this winter is the sole exception.

The streaky peach stripe wasn’t invited but now that it’s here, it’s not entirely unwelcome.

Nearly two months later, I’ve finally developed the first film I shot with my Christmas present to myself, a Lomo LC-A camera.

I asked the lab not to color-correct my images, since Lomo cameras are known to produce ultra-saturated, barely realistic colors. The man behind the counter said a certain amount of correcting was mandatory based on the processing machines of today (Rats!) but beyond that he said the technicians would let things alone.

I’m curious as to what would have happened had I let them correct the color as they saw fit. The images I got back were specifically un-saturated and a little pink. But they were dreamy and aged like I’d hoped for, so I’ll experiment some more before I lay down my final verdict. For now, I’m optimistic.

From my trip to Florida to visit my family:

The Colony Plaza is where the men behind Disney World stayed when the theme park was first being built. It was the only adequate hotel around there at that time, before Orlando exploded into the tourist trap it soon became. The Plaza had been slated to be torn down recently, it’s abandoned and the windows are blown open, mattresses and TVs litter the parking lot. But three years after I first fell in love with it, it’s still there, and I hope it always will be.

Given that I grew up in the cold north, anything southern, especially edibles like fried chicken and cheap waffles, I find to be fully fascinating.

Back at home, this image is more what I’m used to:

Knee-deep snow, and a dwarfy dog who’s good at tricks and bad at behaving.

Even the most camera-shy curmudgeon bursts into a happy little ham behind the magical curtains of an old-fashioned photo booth. A charity event this weekend at which I made an appearance offered free sessions inside just such a booth. Better yet, hardly anyone else in attendance had time to care, which meant I was free to strike poses endlessly!

I’d liken the dream-like level of my joy to rummaging through a bottomless Christmas stocking. To temper my giddy glee, the sobering challenge I soon assigned myself was to produce a strip in which I could tolerate how I looked in all quadrants of the photos.

I never quite achieved that, but here are the final four contenders. (I’m almost ashamed to say there’s fifteen more strips where these came from…)

I don’t know how in-the-know others ’round here are about digital camera technology. Apparently, there’s a new category of devices called Micro Four Thirds cameras which are rolling out right about now. Due to a brand new optical set-up these groovy gadgets offer the fancy clarity and depth of a digital SLR camera, but in the pocket-able form factor of a simpler point-and-shoot. (Plus interchangeable lenses.)

I’ve had two digital cameras in my life. A 3.2 megapixel Nikon which I loved right away, and when it broke, a 5.2 megapixel Canon which I never-ever loved. I’ve been patiently awaiting a justifiable opportunity to upgrade and…

I’ve got high hopes for this Olympus Micro Four-Thirds model which was revealed as a prototype last fall and which insiders are buzzing might be released next month. I’m thinking it might do just the trick for me. Luxe in leather…yes please!

Less hack-job-y info on the Four Thirds breakthrough here and then here and also here.

It’s not something I’ve done before, but this year I did gift myself a Christmas Present.

Some of us hunt for the ultimate denim jeans, or the perfect pair of trainers – filling our lives with formidable contenders but somehow never meeting up with that one true champion.

I’m becoming that way with cameras. The cover story from this issue of Monocle magazine last spring put many of my personal feelings into perfect focus – that the output of digital cameras never seems to glow with the rich warmth of that from old-school film cameras.

Digital vs. analog, flash vs. non-flash, clarity vs. surrealism, my camera-oriented allegiances have wavered and ruptured violently over the years. My office closet is now littered with the sad corpses of cameras I wanted desperately to rescue me from myself but that never quite did.

So this December, my best guess for what might finally end this camera-based turmoil turned out to be the Lomo LC-A, a 35mm device some consider a “toy camera”. From glowing descriptions and photographic examples, I began to trust that if armed with such a camera myself, every image I captured from then on would appear as if snipped out of some vibrant Steve Zissou-like scrapbook.

Being that the LC-A in its peak form and specs is now out of production, I bopped over to e-bay and ordered a slightly vintage, mint-in-box device from St. Petersberg, Russia.

24 days later, and a full week after Christmas, my lustworthy Lomo arrived via air-mail. I’ve mooned over every layer of the box and tape, paper, string and packaging that it arrived in.

I’m smitten as well with the way it looks, how the name-brand is printed in Russian rather than English lettering (butches it up a bit, I feel), and I appreciate the rock-like sturdiness the device suggests when I grab it in my hands.

I need now to take a test roll to determine whether I can salute the camera’s actual photographic capabilities, or if the LC-A is destined to die in the closet with the previous generations of fallen contenders.

Please, please, please…let this be the one!