For The Sprockets

I have a notebook. I carry it everywhere with me. I'm not a constant jotter. I just find it's better to have one than to not have one. But in this notebook I write down ideas, things of interest, plans. There's this ever growing list of potential blog posts. I've got maybe half a page of potential posts. And I just never seem to get round to actually doing them. If I had a constant cash flow then I think I'd have a more consistent blog flow because I could afford to develop the 10 rolls of film I have waiting. But there's things I could post about in the meantime. One of which I'm going to blog about now.

Last month Lomography did this analogue marathon type thing on their website. Basically every day you had to complete a task to earn 5 piggies. Piggies if you aren't familiar with are basically redeemable points. 1 piggy equals £1/$1/€1. You can spend them on the online Lomography shop (following minimum purchase order rules). Anyways since I didn't have much else better to do with my time I did the marathon. It lasted 5 days so by the end I had 25 piggies in my account. Not wanting to waste my efforts and hard earned piggies I decided that it might be nice to buy a new camera. The hard part was choosing. I struggled for a couple of days with this decision. It was a pretty bad time for me. I repeatedly whined on at the boyfriend about it. He kept giving me different answers. It was awful. But in the end I settled and purchased myself a shiny red Sprocket Rocket.

Pretty right?

Here's the specs: 

• Uses all types of standard 35mm film.

• Super-wide angle lens that captures the whole width of the film, including sprockets!

• Unique dual scrolling knobs make multiple exposures easier than ever!

• B-setting for long exposures.

• Zone-focusing.

• Hot-shoe for flash and built-in standard tripod thread

So far I've shot two rolls of film in this camera but I've only had one developed due to overwhelming lack of funds. But here's what I've shot so far.

I'm pretty pleased with the results. The day I was out shooting was beautifully sunny as you can see. I was actually giving something of a lesson to the boyfriend and a friend on my cameras but they're yet to collect their films. For all I've seen of how the Sprocket Rocket has been used by others I think for me it'll be something of a go to camera for landscapes and architecture. I'm off to Barcelona a week on Monday and I cannot wait to capture the city on my Sprocket Rocket. 

Now I don't want to end on a low but I must say that handing this film in to the local Lomography store ended up being something of a poor experience and the subsequent service of getting the film back has been disappointing too. Having a member of staff with what I can politely describe as a bad attitude really does reflect badly on the Lomography brand and this hasn't been my first time witnessing this member of staff's attitude. Handing this film in got me the 10th stamp on my Loyalty card which meant I was entitled to a free pack of film. I was given the option of 35mm or 120 but only in their cheapest film, ISO100. Not much use to me as I have plenty left from previous boxes. Now the Loyalty card does say you can exchange it for more expensive film but you have to pay the difference. Something I was more than happy to do but was refused as apparently the member of staff couldn't put it through the till. I'm not an expert in business but it doesn't make sense to me to offer something if you aren't going to fulfil it. That's just poor form. Now I did expect that perhaps I'd have to wait a little longer for my film to come back to me considering it's from a Sprocket Rocket but I didn't expect my boyfriend's and friend's film to take longer than mine to be returned. Their films were just regular C41 processing from a Canon AE-1 and a LC-A+. Again not an expert in business but I do suspect that the main drive towards these Lomography Gallery Stores being a success is going to be film processing. However this isn't going to work well for them if processing continues to take a 10+ day turnaround. The other issue I had with my film happened when I finally got home to check the CD and it turned out to not work. My laptop wouldn't read it. This isn't an issue with the laptop as I put in other CDs and they all worked fine. So now after waiting over 10 days to get my film back I was stuck with negatives and a broken CD. Understandably I was angry. So I emailed the store, emailed the site and at their request emailed Lomography UK. Only the store responded. They offered to get a new CD sent out to me. I told them I wanted it delivering to my home address and I wanted digital access to my scans because waiting for a new CD that might not work again wasn't good enough. So this morning someone from the LomoLab sent me a link to my scans. But this whole experience has left a very bitter taste in my mouth. 

Well that's rant over.

How do you like the photos?

Laters,

P x

LDN Continued

Another two rolls from my trip to London last month were collected the other day. I think at the time of handing them in I'd asked the boyfriend to pick out two rolls so I didn't know what to expect in return. Both rolls he picked were from the Canon AE-1 and document my wander along the South Bank to Covent Garden to Camden. Here's some of my favourites.

The full albums are here and here if you wanna check out the rest of the shots. 

My little bag of films to be developed still holds a whopping 5 rolls from London and a roll from here in Manchester too. Unfortunately I am now woefully poor and can't be sure as to when I can afford to develop the rest of them. I'm in the awkward transition from weekly to monthly pay so funds are oh so low. There is a part of me that wants to just hand them all in and get them done but that'd be a bit silly. Will see how it goes. Might be able to afford another two.

I did just want to note that so far I remain impressed with the LomoLab for developing. Yeah perhaps it isn't the cheapest way to go about it nor the fastest (turnaround is a little over a week) but with the shop being local and my repeated visits making me one of their regulars now then I can't complain with the service. Plus my little Lomo Loyalty card will soon be full and that means a free 3-pack of film. Not bad.

So while posts on my own photography may now be sparse I will try to blog a little something every week. Maybe now would be a good time to revisit my digital work or perhaps do something new.

Laters,

P x