Kids Matter, Teachers Care

The last few weeks have been really tough as the tension builds in the contract dispute between the B.C. Teacher's Federation and the Liberal Government. It is a difficult time to be a teacher right now as we watch our profession, our fundamental union rights, and the learning conditions of our students being continually eroded by a government who decides that balancing the books is more important than investing in our future generations. We spent 3 days this week on the "sticket line" - leafleting, spreading the word, and hopefully building support for our cause. And although I know that those actions are important in our battle for our rights and our students' rights, it sure did feel good to be back in the classroom for the last 2 days of this week.

I took several pictures during the walk-out and the rallies this week, but haven't yet finished the roll of film. I hope to finish  and develop it this weekend. But in the meantime, I wanted to post some pictures I took back in January of my classroom... to remind myself, what we are fighting for.

Photos taken with my Kodak Retinette IA and Kodak 100 Ultracolor film.

Splish Splash

As mentioned in my last post, our Kodak Retinette IA is a finicky little camera whose results vary widely. I am still figuring out to which situations it is best suited. However, the stars were clearly aligned in this particular moment with the sun shining directly on this water spout, and sheer luck in me guessing my distance from the spout for focusing purposes. It gives me hope that if I learn to be a better photographer, I can do this little camera some justice.

I love the variation between the very defined and detailed concrete and the blurred movement of the water droplets.

Photos taken with my Kodak Retinette IA and Kodak 100 Ultracolor film.

Kodak Retinette in Review

The Kodak Retinette IA was the first of our new babies that I tried out. It is a very, very pretty looking camera and is quite light and portable. It takes regular 35mm film which is a bonus because it saves on film and developing costs. It also has a lovely brown leather case and strap.
However, the camera is quite limited in what it can do. It does have enough manual settings to allow for adjusting both shutter speed and aperature, but the shutter speed settings only range from 1/30-1/250 of a second. This makes taking photos in various lighting difficult and limited. I may look at playing more with a flash the next time I use this camera.
Also the lens has no zoom, and as far as I can tell, the lens cannot be switched out for another. Now I love the prime lens on my Olympus Pen F, but the focus on the Olympus allows for really nice, detailed close up shots. The lens on the Kodak Retinette IA uses a distance-focusing system in which you need to guesstimate the distance between you and the subject and adjust the focus by this... however because the camera uses a rangefinder, you have no way of seeing whether the photo will be in focus or not. This resulted in several blurry shots on my first trial roll. 

I did get some really nice shots on a sunny day of subjects that were far enough away that I could set the distance-focus as high as it would go so that there really was no room for error.

 

I also managed to get a few really nice shots of this water spout. I think the lighting and sheer fluke on judging the distance was the key.

I took several shots indoors of our friends Jeff & Michelle's puppies and the results left a lot to be desired. It was obviously not bright enough in the room and I had not at all figured out the distance-focusing system yet. I wonder how these would have turned out if I had used a flash?

Blurry, even though I was sitting what seemed like far enough back

I like this one, especially the depth of field. I do wish though that the lighting was a little better.

To the camera's defense, I was also using a 100 speed film (Kodak 100 Ultracolor) which really isn't suited to indoor shots like this anyway. So I think the next roll I use with the Retinette will be a higher speed, possibly playing with a flash, and being more disciplined about effectively judging distance for focus.

I am learning so much from playing with all these different cameras! It is fantastic!

"A" - Film26 Project #1

The incessant rain and sometimes wet, soggy, slush that has opened itself onto our fair city has kept me from getting out and shooting film! I am really lucky that there was some breathing room in the first month of the Film26 project, but now the excuses are over. I need to get shooting and developing film a lot more quickly.

So with out further ado... the first 2 entries I submitted to the Film26 photogroup.

"A" is for "Adorable Animals"

Our friend's puppy - Chopper. Spring loaded and ready to catch that ball!

Random puppy waiting outside in the rain. At least he's got his rain coat on!

The colour photo was taken with our new Kodak Retinette IA and Kodak ultracolor 100 film. The black and white was taken with my Pentax K1000 and Kodak 400CN Film.