A Birthday Surprise
When my friend asked if I would do a boudoir shoot for her husband’s birthday present I was excited to try something new. I wanted to make them a piece of art rather than a pin-up. I had seen this post on “kiss the groom” (a fast favorite) and wanted to try something similar. Although with a one week deadline, we weren’t ready to dive in to a totally new medium. We created something with a similar feel using materials easily found a the art store.
I did take the plunge and purchased a Lens Baby Composer to aid in the feel of the images. I bet you don’t know that while in school I photographed all my assignments using a crappy Cannon Rebel 35mm which would scratch my film plane even. Oh, those were the days. Then BYU’s photo department secured a few 4×5″ cameras which we could rent. Well I checked out one of those 40 lb cases whenever I could. I loved the 4×5 cameras and I loved tilting that front plane. I used those cameras in my illustration class, which was mostly product work (which I hated) and proceeded to use it for the portrait class. My teacher asked that I stop shooting with the large format camera. He wanted the images to be less staged (they were still pretty loose, I thought). At the time I didn’t really feel the need to practice shooting people with my slr. I had had plenty of time on that thing.
That spring we visited some photographers in Los Angeles who photographed people using a 4×5 camera. Kids and families even! They were high end portraitists who would present proofs (4×5″ contact prints) in handmade books and photographed wiggly kids using a camera that took time to set up and was difficult to move around. Unbelievable. Wish I could remember who they were so I could get an update on their work. That was probably 15 years ago.
Since that time I have always wanted a 4×5″ camera of my own, or get a tilt-shift lens. But I never wanted to lug the equipment around or spend the dough for the tilt shift lens. I couldn’t imagine shooting a wedding and having to set up 3 different cameras. Just too much stuff to deal with. But whenever I saw 4×5 or 8×10 cameras being used for wedding photography, I would always dream of ways to make it work.
Fast forward to 2011. Film is pretty much dead (unless you talk with Jonathan) but I still have the desire to load the film and crank the knobs and get some type 55 polaroid. Oooo, and a vintage, uncoated lens. Buying a $250 lens baby makes me feel a bit like a sell out. Really, everyone’s got one… every blogger mom in the world owns one. Why am I just hearing about them? Am I really that out of the loop? Apparently. I want the hack product too. It’s $250. In the world of lens, that’s super cheap.  It’ll hold me over until I decide I need the real thing. Tonight I will dream of all the things I could do with a 4×5 camera.
Enjoy!
We found these wooden frames which I’m sure are made for someone to paint on. They were a convenient 4×6 size! We just got some sheet adhesive, not sure what it is called, and mounted the prints to the frames. Then we used some jell medium or something… who knows. It sounded a lot like mod podge. I almost bought the glossy mod podge, but I’m glad I didn’t. This stuff smelled much better. Sorry the details are a little fuzzy. This happened in April and all the supplies are packed away some place in my garage.
