Sunday, August 2, 2009

Spoiled, Rotten, Selfish


It will be a week before I have the new beach photos. I am going to NYC tomorrow for the week. It will be the usual fare--museums, galleries, bookstores, Central Park, cafes and bars, walking in SoHo. My DJ friend has gotten married, so I can't stay with him now. His marriage is costing me a fortune already. He is playing a club while I am up there, so I will go and watch the Decline of the Nation. Maybe. I won't have anything to wear.

Bedbugs. Manhattan is full of them. It is epidemic. I am staying at a hotel on 53rd between 2nd and 3rd, an Ikea sort of place. Upper East Side. All the reviews rave about its cleanliness. If I itch, I'll wish I had booked a room at the Chelsea Hotel. At least there the rooms are large.

As usual, cheap cameras cost me big bucks. When I wanted to try a rangefinder camera, I bought the inexpensive Voigtlander R. The thing is a beauty. Shooting with it, though, made me want a Leica.

I laughed yesterday with the fellows at the camera store who found it funny that I'd attached a Leica flash to my Holga. They don't realize how clever I am. But shooting with the Holga has made me want to get a lightweight medium format rangefinder. I read up on them and began yearning for a Mamiya 7. I bid for one on eBay. But one of the guys at the camera store talked to me about the Mamiya 6, and I came home and researched that and it became the one I wanted. Maybe. Not certain what to do, I dragged my feet on the Mamiya 7 and lost. Instant regret, though, because it went cheap. Later that night, I bid on a Mamiya 6 body. Just before midnight, I won. Now I have a body without a lens. The lenses cost, too, and there are not as many available. I won't tell you what it is all costing me, but if you want to buy one of my many other cameras, I need to raise some money.

Of course, I won't have the new camera when I go to NYC, so it will be the Holga.

I am spoiled and impulsive, but I figure it takes having all the other stuff to make shooting with the Holga good. If I had only a Holga camera, I wouldn't take a picture with the piece of junk. With all the expensive cameras backing it up, however, it is a luxury. It takes a lot of money to shoot with a Holga.



3 comments:

  1. yes the holga...but don't you have a Diana? It is junkier than the holga I think! Mamiya, Hasselblad, Bronica, Leica, I want one of each...so then I could shoot with my holga and diana junk cameras! Have fun in NYC. A whole week? I only had three days! :)

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  2. I just finishing watching Synedoche, NY. What a movie. You see it?

    The Erotic Object: Surrealist Sculpture exhibit at MOMA looks cool. Well everything at MOMA is cool I suppose. NYC is cool even when it is sweltering August.

    I don't own a camera. I don't know what a Holga or a Mamiya is or does. I haven't a clue what a rangefinder does but Holga makes me think of a German or Danish girl masseuse.

    Godspeed on your travel. Keep in touch.

    Do you think Canepari hates me commenting on his blog? I just wanted to see more photographs.

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  3. Rhonda,

    I do have a Diana. Several. I bought them years ago on eBay. They all have terrible light leaks. I will try them again, though. Maybe I should try fixing them.

    Lisa,

    Haven't seen the film. Don't get a camera. Don't learn about them. It is an awful addiction.

    I don't know about Canepari. He was awfully nice when we corresponded.

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