monochrome

itty bitty hearts, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

I've joined a group on Flickr called "52 of 2012," which gives a new assignment every week for a photo theme. I needed some inspiration/ motivation to take different sorts of pictures, and so far it's been fun.

This week's theme is "Monochrome," and when a coworker gave out these tiny cupcakes this morning, of course the first thing I did was take out my camera.



My Nikon has several color settings, including black & white, sepia, and cyanotype.





The cyanotype pic was the one I chose to post in the group page. It was fun to take pictures with all the different settings, though.

Oh, and the cupcake was yummy.

Sad days for fans of Kodak

I'm sure you've heard by now that Kodak has filed for bankruptcy. This makes me sad, as I (and perhaps most of you) would not be into photography if not for Kodak. My first camera was a Brownie that my mom had picked up at a rummage sale.

I don't even remember what I took pictures of. Cats, probably. But it introduced me to the wonderful world of taking pictures, from which I have derived considerable pleasure since.

My next camera was the 110, the slim pocket camera that used film cartridges and flash cubes. Remember flash cubes?

(Mine was black, but I couldn't find a good image of the black model)

That camera went to camp with me, where my friend Margie and I took pictures of each other taking pictures of each other. We were ten.

I wonder if she still has the picture of me?

I had other cameras in my 'teens and twenties, some of them Kodak, some not. The next camera that changed my life was the EasyShare I bought so I could upload pictures of items I was selling on eBay.

When I had the bright idea to take it with me on my rambles about town, my photographic life took off. I got an account on Flickr to host pictures for blogging. The nearly instant feedback pushed the learning curve to great heights, and I learned so much just by tooling around the site looking at other peoples' pictures. For an inexpensive little camera, it took pretty good pictures. I even sold a couple that I took with it.

When I bought my current camera, I gave the Kodak to a co-worker who didn't have one to take pictures of her grandchildren. I hope it lives a long and happy life chronicling the lives of those kids.

I also hope Kodak, the company, survives this setback. I used to live in Rochester, the home of Kodak, and they used to be the largest employer in town. It would be really sad to see it disappear.

What are your Kodak memories?

Grandmothers' Garden in winter

DSCN0483, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

The garden grows brown and crisp, but never bare.

Fun with an iPad

My desk is a lot more interesting like this, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

I received an iPad last month (I actually won it in a drawing - people really do win these things!), and one of the most fun things to do with it is play with photographs. It has a camera, and there are some fun apps that do interesting things with your photos.

Picture Westfield

vampire house, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

The Westfield Athenaeum Library wanted local photographers to participate in its Picture Westfield project to document the city for its archives, and I signed up.

I thought it would be really fun to capture some of the great houses around Westfield. There really are a lot of them.















It was fun to walk around town and really look at all the cool houses. It'll be interesting to see what other people took pictures of!

Colonial Harvest Day

costumed, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

Lower Court Street in Westfield was taken over by Westfield on Weekends this morning, for their Colonial Harvest Day event. There were crafts, performances, demonstrations, and people in costume all up and down the street.


















The event was postponed from yesterday due to the weather, and the day turned out to be sunny and nice. Everyone looked to be having a good time. It was nice to see this event back after a year off. Hopefully by next year, the construction downtown will be finished, and they can expand back onto the green!

Stanley Park in September

crisp, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

Cooler days and crisp nights have brought out the autumnal beauty at Stanley Park in Westfield, MA.

nature still life

nature still life #4, originally uploaded by Lizzie~Belle.

A new project that I came up with is Nature Still Life. I gather interesting objects as I walk, arrange them when I find a nice spot, photograph them, and leave them there as is. Art in the wild, as it were.