all © catherine buca 2010

I got a new light meter this week. Instead of using it for useful things like taking photos I’ve mostly been using it to measure the EV of things around the house, including my moods. I’ve also bought a Diana Mini. I prefer square format and am far happier with my MF photos than others, so now I have a use for all that 35mm film I’ve got stored in various boxes and drawers. There’s something psychological going on when I use a Diana/Holga because I stop caring and just take pictures. Good times.

both © catherine buca 2010

The makers of Hipstamatic are bringing a new gimmicky but awesome app to the iphone next month that’s all about post-processing: Swankolab. I can’t wait to try it out.

all © catherine buca 2010

I had a lovely stroll in Hanley Park a couple of Sundays ago. I took a shed-load of hipstamatic photos.

So, The Impossible Project has released its first lot of new film. I can’t help but feel terribly meh about it all. Releasing new film is a good thing, definitely. The price point and the fetishisation of the whole thing is not, though. More power to those with the money to buy it – but I’ll stick to the last few packs of 600 I’ve got in my cupboard, and see if the prices ever come down.

both © catherine buca 2010

The first picture was taken with the normal iphone camera, then I used a tiltshift app to blur, and then lo-mob to make it purty. The second one is a hipstamatic shot.

© catherine buca 2010

I still can’t get used to typing ’2010′. It’s like, all futuristic and weird and stuff.

Downloaded lo-mob to my iphone to other night. I like it lots, didn’t think I would. Tried out a couple of things layering hipstamatic and lo-mob effects. This above is not one of them.

both © catherine buca 2010

I really love the hipstamatic iphone app, especially the new 150 version with extra flash and film types. My (current) favourite combo is the Helga Viking lens, Ina’s 1969 film and Dreampop flash. I’ve noticed different combos look better in different conditions, but I always forget which is best when, so I tend to stick to the above combo now – it’s a pretty good all-rounder.

One niggle about hipstamatic though: while they’ve added a great new feature that lets you select a picture you like and apply whatever combo you used for it to the camera ready for the next shot, they’ve seemingly neglected the atrociously lengthy loading times. It takes an age for the app to warm up when you first open it, and then when you’ve taken the photo it takes what seems like a lifetime for the picture to ‘develop’ and the camera be ready to take the next. This, sadly, makes hipstamatic a bit useless for those sneaky, on-the-go pictures, or for anything more fast-paced than the most leisurely of strolls in a place where nothing ever happens.

© catherine buca 2010

© catherine buca 2010

We’ll get around to decorating eventually. Only been here 10 years, plenty of time yet.

© catherine buca 2010

The gentleman in this photo can be found here: http://www.andrewconroy.info

© catherine buca 2010

I used to be prissy about keeping my blog and flickr stream free of ‘crappy’ photos (subjective cat is subjective). Life’s too short though, and what’s more I couldn’t give a crap. I get just as much joy from my daft iphone app photos as I do from stick-up-my-arse polaroids and the like.