Through the Viewfinder - again

I really enjoyed messing around with my fake TTV images, and after yet another try with my beautiful Rolleicord, I have decided to persevere in making the images in the 'correct way'. I also decided that the Rolleicord isn't suitable for the job, firstly because it's really heavy and to juggle that with a contraption and another camera on top is a recipe for lens blur if ever there's been one and secondly, the front and side flaps are a pain and just get in the way. I know I could butcher it and remove the flaps, but that would be a great shame as the camera still works with film.

So I've gone back to the beginning and just bid on a Kodak Duaflex on good old Ebay, the Duaflex is the camera of choice for all the cool kids who seem to rattle their stunning TTV pics out at an alarming rate of knots. My bid's in at £15 which I think is reasonable and it's the highest bid by about £5 so far. I don't think I want to go much higher. If I don't get this one, there are two more with end dates of 6th April, but I'm inpatient and 'my one' ends in six hours, so I'll be standing on my head in yoga at the critical moment which is shame, but it will stop me spending too much!

Fingers crossed for me please!

More Through the Viewfinder

As mentioned in a previous post, I've been trying to work out the magic of Through the Viewfinder photography and haven't really been doing very well. I wondered if there was any way to cheat at it - there seem to be ways to cheat at most types of photography so I set about Google. Flickr came up with the goods in a wonderful group called Noise and Dust where people have photographed their viewfinder with a blank view so you just get the border and any dust, flares, vignetting etc. All you have to do next is mess around with blend layers in Photoshop and you get a fabulous image like the one above. I shot a pretty ordinary bowl of slightly sad looking fruit on my D300 and then applied the viewfinder from an Asco Panda camera from the group mentioned above and I think the result is wonderful. I've done a few more using pictures I shot yesterday, some corks and a bunch of daffodils and then tried some existing pictures of food - apples, tomatoes, red onions and some lovely pears which all lend themselves very well to the technique and could feasibly have been shot using the 'real' method. Just before I went to bed last night I applied the same technique to a sign on the North Pier in Blackpool which was also very successful.

What I would like to do to continue this so it's not so much of a cheat, is to use the same process, but shoot the viewfinder of my Rolliecord see this post as I think I'd be more comfortable using my own camera, it's also a much cleaner look and I love the cross hairs. I'll try to do that tomorrow morning or certainly over the weekend.