Guitar with glowing edges...

Me wrestling with the guitar. Be glad the blog doesn't come with sound...

I was over in Dumbarton yesterday, and this is a photo of the castle superimposed on part of the war memorial in Levengrove Park.

I'm currently obsessed with double exposures. So here are some fakes...

Byres Road crossed with Garnethill.

Dad and the River Festival.

Fly on the window. Outside, fortunately.

Me and the Holga looking old-fashioned. It turned up yesterday, and I've so far managed to get the film in okay, accidentally double-expose a picture (the Potatoes of the Night superimposed on my Dad - he says it's very uncomfortable), take a picture of the back garden, and deliberately double-expose the cat and one of my hands with three different colours of flash. I'm sure the sheer badness will amuse the developers endlessly. Assuming I can actually find somewhere to develop it. Photo Factory claim they will, but that's probably just their Auchenshuggle branch...

I also came across a guy on flickr who's been running a project where he takes a roll of film, then rewinds it and passes it to someone else who takes photos on top of his. Some of the results are really lovely.

I'm also quite a fan of this guy's photos. The lamp one's particularly nice. 

I was looking for a pattern for a bag that I could attempt to sew (preferably one with three or fewer pieces to it - I'm still not up to speed with my sewing and fell foul of a 4-piece top the other day). Anyway, I wasn't struck on any of the bags, but I realised that what everyone really needs is a Furious Purple Bear:
 

While I'm waiting for the Holga to turn up, here are some faked versions... 

Purple lupin. 

A magpie flying over the house. The cat's terrified of them. They're always chasing her and I think she's scared they'll pick her up and carry her off into one of the rowan trees. She's probably quite right to worry, they're very big. 

The cat looking at the table. 

Helicopter Quartet

I saw a bit of a programme last night about Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet which involves each member of the quartet flying around in a different helicopter while playing lots of tremolo and yelling numbers in German. This is clearly where 4forte have been going wrong. Luckily they include the first page of the score on that webpage, so all I need to do now is turn up next week with four helicopters (and lose my fear of flying - although it may be overridden by my fear of Stockhausen...)

Holga again

Since the University might actually get round to paying me at the end of the month, I've splashed out the grand sum of £40 on a Holga with filters and flash! Everyone seems very taken with the fun of using them - it's apparently quite liberating not to be able to take perfect photos, no matter how hard you're trying, so you can just get on and enjoy yourself, ignoring all perfectionistic tendencies.

And the colour photos - particularly when cross-processed - have a kind of old Super 8 cine film look about them, which I've always felt looks more "real" than video. Although video actually does look more real. I'm not big on reality. The greeny-yellowy cast also reminds me of The Double Life of Veronique, which is one of my favourite films ever, possibly because it has very little truck with reality...

Music makes your brain happy...

Or so Wired says... I think they're right.

University Avenue and Highburgh Road. 

Weirdly fiddled-with West End through a window. 

Gloomy dog on Byres Road. 

Q & A

Belle and Sebastian's Questions and Answers are great...:-)

Dowanhill from the Level 1 Lab. 

Tower from the Lab. 

towerblock reflections 

Have finally managed to turn myself into an old photo (in the style of Auntie Cathie). I wonder if there would be a market for portraits in this style (i.e. very little focus, vignetting, lots of diffuse glow)? It's certainly about a gazillion times more flattering than your average modern photo (which I always try to stay out of)... Must find more vict...I mean subjects, to try it out on... 

Mrs Rule's rose looking slightly surreal... 

While looking around on Flickr, I came across several mentions of "Holga", then found an article about it in a magazine the other day. Apparently it's a very cheap Chinese medium-format camera, brought out in the early 80s, which has been enjoying a surge of popularity lately. Despite, or perhaps because of, its many flaws - vignetting, blur round the edges, light leaks - it takes oddly appealing pictures. I don't actually have one of these beasts (although I'm quite tempted to get one), but found a Photoshop action that simulates the effects. Here's the rose above Holga-fied. 

Trees in the sunshine. 

And the Holga version... 

Polarised rowans. 

Scary tower shot. A tourist helped me spot this angle by asking me if I'd take a picture of him with his camera. I realise there's been a bit of a plethora of tower photos recently, but it's just so picture-skew... 

Girl studying outside the Reading Room. 

More black and white bridges. 

Ridiculous door in ridiculous colour... 

Some nights in Renfrew there are two moons...