Break glass in case of boredom

lomo coloursplash, lomo fisheye 2, ringflash by lomography

By Catherine Hadler

17 Jul 2009

I don't have a lot of spare time these days, despite appearances to the contrary! However, if I ever feel boredom coming on, I tend to break out my little coloursplash camera, which despite being broken, still comes in handy for this experiment. I use the colour gels meant for the flash as filters over the small lens, and then get clicking - nothing special, usually just random places around where I live or work. This will keep me occupied for a lunchbreak or two, and usually earns me some strange looks from my colleagues and passersby.

Then, when I get home, the fun really starts - I rewind the film and load it up into my fisheye 2, with ringflash attached. Out comes my dark bag, and handfuls of plastic toys. I will then spend an hour or so arranging my toys in stupid positions inside the dark bag, and mixing up the colour gels for the ringflash, and taking several ridiculous set ups, whilst giggling like a fool. The dark bag makes it possible to show just the toys in the second exposure, over the first image - I guess a box or dark background would work as well.

Then the film is sent off to my local developers, and I wait with baited breath. The results are entirely random - usually by the time I take the second set of shots I have forgotten what was on the first set so when I get the pictures back it is a genuine surprise. Occasionally they happen to work out well, but the point is that I have a lot of fun with the process, despite the strange looks I usually get from passersby and photo-developers.

Perhaps it's a mid-life crisis or second childhood. It certainly works to keep me occupied and happy, and I would recommend it as a pick-me-up.

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5 responses

Stéphane Heinz gave props (17 Jul 2009):
This whole set of fishey+colorsplash doubles are really fantastic! Congrats for the great work!! :))
Cicely Graham gave props (17 Jul 2009):
I love it -- they're just toooo good! Very well done!
Richard Johnson gave props (17 Jul 2009):
Mid-life crisis or not, your images demonstrate an enormous imagination to which I say, "Yeah!!!" Keep up the good work.
Betsy Allen gave props (18 Jul 2009):
This is pretty fascinating!
david ong gave props (27 Jul 2009):
very creative, i like it.