The past week saw me excitedly trying out the new Holga 135 BC camera, which I'd named "Emo Nemo", after it's rather moody-looking photos. And I am still searching for fresh ways to shoot old familiar places...

As the Hungry Ghost Festival drew to a close, I visited my late parents and relatives at the temples, which provided some interesting photo opportunities too...

Check out some of the photos I took along the way...

Again, constructive comments and helpful tips are much appreciated!

No, it's not what you might think...

Some might have already noticed that photos from the first roll of film I used, the Kodak Gold 200, had a yellowish tint. The second roll, the Fujichrome Sensia 200, had more green hues (or perhaps that's because most of the pics were taken at the park?)...

Now for the third roll, I tried out the Lomography X-Pro Slide 100 film, which produces images with distinct blue tones...

Check out the results...


I think I kinda prefer these blue-ish images. There's another film I'd yet to try that produces reddish photos, but I'm not too keen on that so far. We'll see...

Comments and tips are all welcomed! :-)

I just collected the scans from my 2nd roll of film today!

In this roll, I used Fujichrome Sensia 200 colour slides film, so that I could try out all that marvellous cross-processing that I'd heard so much about and been trying to recreate using Photoshop previously...

I happened to be near the Singapore Botanic Gardens on Monday, and it was not raining (surprise, surprise!), so I took the opportunity to hop over and snap some greenery...

Another thing is that in order to shoot more within one roll of 36 exposure film, I decided to do more double-exposures, meaning shooting two images within one single frame. That way, I could tell two stories at once! But more importantly, allow the darker photos to "share" the light and avoid total underexposure...

Here are the results:



Hope you like these!

Yes! I'd already shot and completed my very first roll of negative film this afternoon, with the final shot taken of David over lunch at IKEA... 

Despite the heavy downpour I immediately roped in Kit, and the three of us made our way over to Triple D Midi Lab at Burlington Square to process the film!

Thanks, guys, for accompanying me!

We had an hour's worth of workout at the gym, then I hopped back to the shop to collect the developed and scanned photos from Uncle Mike, the friendly proprietor of Triple D, and I walked away with a roll of Fujifilm Fujichrome Sensia 200 slide film, a cable shutter release, and most importantly, a CD-rom and negatives of my first set of Lomo images! Total damage = S$30.20.

I had been dreading the whole day about the outcome of my round-the-block shoot, as it was mostly done indoors and under low-light conditions. To my extreme delight, 31 out of the 39 frames contained actual images! In fact, most of these turned up pretty okay for a first-timer!

Granted, I DID spend most of my teenage and early adult years fooling around with film photography, but it HAS been around ten years. So I'm giving myself a big self-pat on my shoulder...

BTW, I had mentioned naming my Holga 135BC camera as "My Nemo", or "Nemo" for short. I have now given it a nickname: "Emo Nemo", which will also be my alter-ego identity on Lomo-related forums and websites etc...

Okay okay, enough chitchat! So here are the more presentable photos, and there weren't any Photoshopping involved. The only editing was some basic cropping and resizing, that's all!

Check them out:


For the above images, which are actually my test shots on my Holga, I tried playing with the various focus points, the Bulb and Normal modes, the Coloursplash flash, the multiple exposures etc. Some were successful, some were not... 

Perhaps some of you might be thinking why I'm going ga-ga over these grainy, blurry, unsophisticated images. I can only say, those who get it, will get it lah! :-)

There's still so much to learn, and that's great! It'll keep me on my toes!

But all in all, most importantly, I had tons of fun doing this, and am already looking forward to starting on that roll of slides film!!!

Several weeks back, I'd expressed a keen interest in picking up Lomo photography on my blog, and randomly mentioned that it's on my wishlist...

Well, I totally didn't expect anyone to take me seriously...

But today, I had received a super duper early birthday present (that's three months ahead of time) from one of my blog readers, Eusri, who had rather enjoyed my photo entries and wanted me to improve further by generously gifting me with my very own Lomo camera!

And so, now I am a proud owner of my very own Holga 135 BC camera AND an accompanying Holga 12MFC electronic flash unit with colour filters, as well as a roll of Kodak Gold 200 negative film!!!

Naturally, I loaded it all up and started snapping my first few Lomo shots there and then!

Also, because the camera comes with a cute little monkey sticker (not sure why), and following the tradition of naming my late beloved pet hamsters, Eeni and Mini, I am going to call this new baby...

For some time, I had been experimenting with creating the various Lomo-esque effects digitally using softwares, but now I can do it for real!

With the roll of 36 exposures film in My Nemo, and armed with the flash unit, I went for a night shoot around my estate. So far, 26 shots have been burnt onto the film already! Will take some more shots tomorrow, hopefully with brilliant daylight!

Granted, I no longer have as much control of the outcome of the images as I would have with my digital camera, and will only find out after the prints have been processed...

But I hope to be pleasantly surprised... :-)

Finally, I must say that after using digital cameras for the past 10 years, it feels rather strange - strangely limiting, yet strangely liberating - going back to an old school analog camera that doesn't even need any batteries to operate!

Ironically, I now have to find a way to scan all these upcoming photographic prints into digital format, so I can upload and post on my blog to share! LOL

Here are a few more pics taken some days earlier, at nearby Mount Faber, and given the Pseudo-Lomo treatment...

For those who'd wanted some of these images for desktop wallpapers (thanks!) the images I posted below are the 1024 x 768 versions, but reduced into 600px wide to fit this blog...





Again, thank you for your encouraging words and feedback! :-)

All photography purists can go away now...

It's hardly a secret that I am an avid photographer, or maybe the more appropriate term is photo enthusiast...

But I am hardly an expert in anything to do with manual photography, as I only make the most of my digital camera...

Anyway, I have slowly but surely fallen in love with the style of photography called "Lomography"...

One day, I would be a proud owner of a Holga or Diana Lomo camera too, like nicekit or kairin...

Actually, while browsing through the Lomo cameras selection at PageOne Bookstore last night, I've kinda set my sights on the Holga 35mm Black Corner (S$102)...



Any kind souls interested to be my sponsor will be greatly appreciated! :-P

But for now, I am contented fooling around and faking the lomo effects on Adobe Photoshop...

Those who are observant enough might have noticed I had, for quite sometime, subconsciously applied effects and manipulated some of my older digital photos into something similar to the Lomo effects...

But not similar enough...

So here are my new trial-and-error exercises, which I fondly call...


Can make it anot? :-)