Kids are all right

Looks like the 80s thing works for teens born in the 90s.

I found this group walking across the park in New Westminster and I had to take their picture.

Styling. To find out more about how this picture was made, visit my flickr post.

------------------

August 14, 2009: the picture is a minor hit, at least for me, with 412 views | 7 comments | 7 favorites

It's all about the Converses!

When you shoot with a test roll for a new (old) camera, you're caught between a hard choice. Load cheap, grainy film, like Kodak Gold 200 and end up with pictures you really love on bad film. Or, blow an entire roll of expensive film on a camera with light leaks, faulty shutters and other faults.

On this day, I was testing a pawn-shop Konica Autoreflex T3 with its Hexar 28mm. The mirror had a v-shape crack. A metal plate flange which helped seal light between the pentaprism and the mirror in the up position was bent and prevented the mirror from swinging all the way. I imagine someone attempted to shove a non-AR lens into the rig.

With some pliers I bent the plate back into a semblance of flatness. And this time I loaded the Gold, which I had no great expectations at 200 ASA. With only 12 exposures it was perfect for testing a suspect camera.

At the park, I came across the group of teens. It was only mid-morning and they looked like they were out for the night. I had to take their photo. To me they represented coolness, youth, and a degree of aimless insouciance. Of course, I had to stop them.

To overcome the film's limitation, I decided to tile the image with three exposures as a way to triple the resolution of the photo.

As you can see, the grain remains. But tiling is not a bad solution.