Space, 1999
Jul. 28th, 2009 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomus
Ten years is a long time in digital camera design, so when Hisae decided to refurbish her old Nikon Coolpix 950 it felt more like time-traveling back to 1969 than 1999 -- especially with the optional fisheye lens adaptor screwed into place.A camera that, ten years ago, seemed light and expensive now seems heavy and cheap, and its 2 megapixel sensor doesn't seem anything like as spacious now as it did back then. But there's no denying the quality and quirk of the images you can get with this Nikon, once you've slipped in four AA batteries (they'll last about 30 minutes before they need replacing), screwed the lens adaptor into its mount, and twisted the rugged swivel-body into action.
Here's a fisheye documentation of our living space via the kind of lens usually reserved for Apollo capsules and Stanley Kubrick (or, for a more 1999-era reference, Chris Doyle) films.
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denying the quality and quirk
Date: 2009-07-27 09:56 pm (UTC)It does have a documentary feel. Try your favorite food places and chefs too. A trendy street Mag from Nippon might pick it up. Though you might both have to start wearing Geta(s) soon.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-27 10:02 pm (UTC)Very interesting. Hisae looks a bit cramped... Where is it that you're looking up through? And also, for some reason I'm straining my eyes to decipher the time on the clock in the first picture.
- Mazie.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-27 10:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-27 10:11 pm (UTC)The photograph where it looks as if I'm looking up is actually just me sticking the camera inside a record box containing a lamp and some metallic jackets from catalogues for Die Gestalten Verlag (http://www.gestalten.com/) books.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-27 10:16 pm (UTC)The flash macro was nice on that camera.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 12:53 am (UTC)Actually I'm actually now curious about the capabilities of the camera without the fisheye adapter. Fringing aside, the images above are not great, but images taken with adapter lenses rarely are.
I used a Sony Mavica for my job around 2001, a camera whose sole "feature" was using 3.5 floppies as storage. It was treated like a golden idol by myself and my coworkers. I don't recall using a floppy disk for anything since.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 01:44 am (UTC)i know you did the joemus thing last year but please dont let all this talk of architecture and cultural memes (not to mention writing books) obfuscate your true calling....to be the best bloody song smith since Macca.!
please.....pretty please.
a plea in stereo
Date: 2009-07-28 01:46 am (UTC)i know you did the joemus thing last year but please dont let all this talk of architecture and cultural memes (not to mention writing books) obfuscate your true calling....to be the best bloody song smith since Macca.!
please.....pretty please.
la exotic normal
Date: 2009-07-28 03:05 am (UTC)Love the photo of your gf.
strangely cramped (other post used same word...), and w the cat? how picture purrrfect.
whats neko chans name?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 03:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 05:04 am (UTC)Re: la exotic normal
Date: 2009-07-28 06:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 07:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 08:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 08:38 am (UTC)Masataka Nakano
Date: 2009-07-28 09:09 am (UTC)I suppose you've seen this:
http://www.artunlimited.co.jp/nakano/madokei.html
http://www.artunlimited.co.jp/nakano/bio_e.html#
Re: la exotic normal
Date: 2009-07-28 09:29 am (UTC)rabbitdomestic god.Re: Masataka Nakano
Date: 2009-07-28 09:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 09:37 am (UTC)Actually, what I like best about this place is the block it's on. I really love the atmosphere of the street just outside. The apartment itself is rather dark, rather cluttered, without much inherent charm. It's adequate, functional, neither too hot nor too cold. Good location near the market and close to friends, interesting area.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 11:00 am (UTC)It's nice to see somebody else from scotland who's moved away successfully....something i dream of doing one day!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 11:25 am (UTC)Re: Masataka Nakano
Date: 2009-07-28 12:40 pm (UTC)It is his first book, which is a collection of the moments “nobody” in Tokyo.
He took over 10 years for persuading to get the varied scenes with 8x10 camera.
The idea, as it was explained to me, was that he would take photographs of parts of crowded central Tokyo at times when no one was visible - not by any prearrangement, but simply by accident. That's why it took 10 years. Apparently he was very strict with himself, and blew up prints to examine the windows in the skyscrapers and so on to see if faces were visible at them.
Anyway, for some reason some of your flat photos reminded me of one or two of the Tokyo Windows ones.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 04:48 pm (UTC)I like the way the window opens into the room (easy to clean). Do you ever have to use the air conditioner? I also like the cozy corner you have created between the radiator and the computer, must be nice in winter.
My room seems much more stuck in the '80s, which is fine by me. I've mentioned the Shaker night stand and Noguchi lamp. There is also an antique mexican bookshelf (red) and a kind of aqua blue mexican hutch with a wire screen front. They are both painted in the style where it is obvious that the pieces have been painted many times over and the different base colors show through the scratches. On top of it is a lamp made of fish vertebrae my older sister made in the 70s. With a hand painted shade. Most of one wall is covered by a numbered print by Finster of a large red leopard with his wild writing all over it and the background color is the most lovely pale green which always gives me a shiver when I look at it, There are some chinese lanterns too and an antique fan.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 04:53 pm (UTC)fragrant harbour* star ferry*
Date: 2009-07-28 05:12 pm (UTC)Re: fragrant harbour* star ferry*
Date: 2009-07-28 05:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 05:27 pm (UTC)Re: Masataka Nakano
Date: 2009-07-28 05:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 05:51 pm (UTC)Whimsy frog, meet dandy lion (http://www.monoscope.com/2009/07/wilhelm_staehle_silhouette_mas.html).
Re: Masataka Nakano
Date: 2009-07-28 06:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 08:41 pm (UTC)Re: la exotic normal
Date: 2009-07-28 09:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 09:31 pm (UTC)what about the good ol' tesla reel to reel behind him?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 09:48 pm (UTC)As for batteries, you ought to get a set of NiMh rechargeables, go for those with the highest capacity (measured in milliampere-hour, mAh) you can get. 2900 mAh or so are commonly available, and will give you more operation time as they'll almost certainly exceed the capacity of the ones around when it first came out.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-28 09:51 pm (UTC)When I used to visit Peru, in Iquitos, I would frequent an open air market on the banks of the Amazon which sells everything from chopped up monkey parts to white larval grubs the size of your fist to barrels of coca leaves. One stall specializes in two things - the wings (sans body) of the blue morpho (http://www.tropicalwings.co.uk/bluemorpho.html) butterfly, and the wings of a large beetle (forgotten the name) which are a deep translucent emerald. Bucketfuls of them. The village children trap them in nets and mercilessly pull the wings off while they are still alive. I couldn't figure out what they were for at first until my Peruvian friend explained that the local women use their fingers to rub the blue off of the wings and apply it as eye shadow. The beetle wings are hung with a thin wire and used as earrings. It was the local cosmetics and jewelry counter :) So over the years I brought back as many as I could stuff into an empty suitcase (it always made me smile to write down butterfly wings on the customs form) and painstakingly glued them, piece by piece, like fish scales, onto the wall of my room. One half is an ethereal, shimmering blue moving into a deep, liquid emerald on the other side. When I have my pink chinese lanterns lit up (they are strung on a line up near the ceiling) the effect is simply amazing. If I do say so myself.
telsa reel to reel.
Date: 2009-07-28 09:56 pm (UTC)Re: la exotic normal
Date: 2009-07-28 09:59 pm (UTC)genuine....?
Date: 2009-07-28 11:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-29 12:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-29 03:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-29 05:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-30 06:00 am (UTC)In December 2005 I traded it for a laptop, with a person who wanted to completely escape both the town and the internet, and who wanted to take pictures during her wanderings. She was gone for five months, reappearing again for some reason just after Renn Fayre 2006.
I went to her house to show her what I'd done with her laptop in the five months, and to retrieve the camera. The laptop crashed immediately upon arrival, and all my work was lost. I got the camera back though, so conservation of gadget mass was conserved, I could only have one item but not both.
When I got the laptop back many months later (dealing with zero dollars here), the traveling lady had the camera again, and I wanted it back one night so badly that the conversation turned into an argument (which often happened with her), and when everything was done I was pretty much no longer on speaking terms with her. I was able to take a few pictures before the batteries died minutes later and then I couldn't even afford new batteries for months. The laptop died again the day that a friend appeared from out of town with a giant pack of AA's.
I located the original owner of the camera, a Mr. Ben Salzburg, and tried to return it, but he wouldn't accept it claiming it wasn't his Nikon. He says that the identifying marks on it were not there, which was how he knew for sure it wasn't his. He said his name was scratched in on the bottom panel and that was absent on the camera I showed him. I tried to explain that I personally had rubbed his name off the camera a year before, which was how I knew it was his, but he would not be convinced. So I was still stuck with it.
When I went to the east coast in 2007 to attend my grandmother's funeral, I brought the camera and the dead laptop with me, and before leaving Albany convinced a relative to pay the repair fee at the local Apple Store. I then took a bus to Boston to meet some friends.
I very happily got to see your show at the Boston ICA my last day in Boston, and I thought the museum was very thoughtful about my bringing all my luggage with me, everyone else was checking coats but I was checking a bunch of big bags. At one point, tired of carrying all my crap around, I threw my jacket onto my pile of bags near the cafe area and heard the horrible bang sound of the camera hitting the ground hard. I went to inspect and the camera screen just said ERROR ERROR and I knew that I had finally killed the thing. I then had the very nice evening watching you guys drink Mojitos out by the water.
The next day I got to Northampton and my laptop was waiting for me. Of course.
Then, about six months later, the laptop died again and was stuck on the shelf while I figured out if I wanted to repair it once more. Did I still want this creepy haunted laptop? Aren't there better ones around by now? The machine stayed dead for about a year, and I fell very far behind on everything and am still catching up having just got the thing back not quite two months ago.
Around April or so, going through my stuff, I tried the Nikon again with new batteries and discovered that it actually worked. This meant that I owned both the functioning Nikon AND the laptop at the same time, for the first time, and this responsibility became so much that the brain started malfunctioning. I still often forget to finish taking the photos I've reserved entire days to finish. I will try again tomorrow I think.
Re: la exotic normal
Date: 2009-07-30 07:23 pm (UTC)Yay, I got one. Thanks for keeping me in my place.
Love,
Dipshit Ape
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-30 07:42 pm (UTC)Wow, 19:16 and the sun doesn't look like it's even setting. In the US it's Daylight Savings Time and it starts turning to dusk around that time.
Interesting re: the metallic jackets. It seems there's some kind of art placed wherever you go.
- Mazie.