Photography – Daily Monday

An accumulation of random purchases

I thought I’d post about the items that I bought from a month ago. Here we go!

Not sure why it turned into *Nobember* when the 2019 ver. was *November*

This is my third calendar set from the same artist, Nishi Shuku. I love his/her artwork so much that I was willing to spend money on this instead of a 100 yen (approx. $1) calendar from Daiso. The only thing that triggered me was the spelling for November. I’m not sure why it’s spelled with a b when the spelling two years ago was already correct with a v.

A slim scissors and a portable washi tape holder

I discovered both of these products through a Youtube video and decided to get my hands on it. I have enough scissors on my desk but the sleek and cute design of this one drove me to purchase it. The washi tape holder actually comes with the pattern tapes as illustrated, which are really cute. I could reuse the holder to store other patterns once the original one ran out.

Found this one when I was browsing randomly at Tokyu Hands. I thought the concept and the pattern of this was cute. It’s made by the same maker that created the washi tape holder (see above). They promote it as label you can use to highlight your monthly calendar. I find that this doesn’t suit my taste that much, though. I wish the paper itself was a bit more translucent so it could show more of the contents behind it. I also think it’d be better if the material wasn’t plasticky on the top since it just makes it hard to write on and inks dry really slow on it.

Features a very light grey grid that I love

I decided that I wasn’t a fan of my previous B6 notebook that I used for journaling my stream of consciousness. After using Hobonichi for 4 years, I couldn’t bring myself to use normal lined notebooks anymore. I prefer plain or light-gridded ones. Since Stalogy was also a popular brand that people use as an alternative to Hobonichi, I decided to give it a try and immediately fell in love with it. It’s way cheaper than Hobonichi at $15 and gives you 368 of gridded pages. And I just adore the sleek jet black cover. It’s something that doesn’t need extra protections and can be used as is. It also comes in A5, B6, and B5 sizes.

I discovered this small display fair of ceramic wares and they were selling all different kinds of wooden spoons (I didn’t think to take a picture of it, ugh). They were priced $2 each and being a sucker for anything wooden, I just had to get some. I use most wooden utensils to have tea time and snacks rather than using it for eating proper meals, so I got the tiny coffee spoon (or tea?). I’m not sure what I’m using the right one for since it’s really long and big, different from the standard wooden cutleries I’ve seen so far. Maybe I’ll keep it as a collection or display haha.

I came across this Miffy tote one day and fell in love with the cute and simple design. I’m not sure if this character is popular outside Japan, but I think it’s a pretty big thing here since there were a lot of other goods associated with this cute rabbit (yes, it’s a rabbit character). My previous canvas tote bag of this size got mold on it (summer in Japan sucks) so I had to throw it away and get a new one. The outer side comes with this sleeve so you can slip your suitcase handle through it while traveling. I wish they had made it into a gigantic pocket instead though.

I’ve been into film photography these days so I wanted to invest in a proper (not plastic) film camera. I found this beauty off Mercari (a Japanese flee market site) for around $100 (with the lens!) and knew I had to get it. Despite being a second-hand camera, it’s still really clean and well-maintained. All the functions are still working properly, too. This model also allows you to have full control of the settings, which is really great for experimenting a lot of shots. Plus, this body works with almost all Nikon lenses ever created, so that’s a plus for versatility.

I used to wonder why people buy antiques, but now I kind of understand the charm of it. I can’t wait to take more pictures with this camera and get it developed! But first I gotta find a studio that does that …

Anyways, this is all for my purchases. Hopefully I’ll be able to restraint myself from buying more items for the rest of the month. Haha.

Experimenting with a film camera

I’ve always had this thing for vintage/analog stuff. So far I’ve played around with polaroid and this time, I decided to try out film. I’ve seen my parents use old film cameras when I was still small. I remember going to photo studios just to get it developed. It was a fun process. Then it just disappeared all of a sudden and got replaced with digital.

Then I noticed that the first polaroid camera brand I bought, Lomography, also sells film cameras. It was on sale as well, so I decided to purchase it. I got a normal version (featured in this post) and a fisheye camera that I have yet to test out.

I got a camera from the La Sardina series. It’s modelled after a sardine can, which is really cute. The set comes with a flash and different color filters. I had to purchase the film rolls separately, though. I got the ISO 400 film.

I immediately experimented with it but never got the chance to develop the film since there weren’t any photo studios around where I live. I had to send the raw film to my friend who lives in Osaka and have him develop it there. Sadly, a few days after the pictures are done, that photo studio itself closed down forever. So now I gotta look for a new studio to develop my future films.

Anyways, here are some of the (sad) results.

As you can see, I still suck at taking pics. The images are all blurry since I didn’t hold the camera properly haha. But I like how the blurriness adds to the charm.

This is a shot of my friend that unexpectedly turned well. Lol.

Notice that the picture got cut off on the left side. Actually, I did a very stupid mistake of exposing the negatives to the light before I got it developed. So half of the roll was damaged and only pictures that I took after this strip was salvageable. It would’ve been great if this whole scene was complete, though. Never again expose undeveloped negatives to light.

I’m liking the first batch of results even though it’s not the best. Taking pictures with these cameras always fill me with excitement since you cannot 100% plan your composition and the outcomes are full of surprises. I’m definitely looking forward to take more pics with this and eventually try out the fisheye version!