First Friday, and viewfinder shots

First Friday at Vintage21 went well -- I even managed to sell a few photos. In case you missed it or happen to be one of my many, many international readers, you can see most of the photos here.

There are several from the tilt-shift series I talked about in my last post, and also several square photos that look sort of old and very awesome.

That series is from an idea called "through the viewfinder," where you shoot a digital camera through another camera's viewfinder. For mine, I mounted my 40D to one end of a drum set boom stand using a light stand adapter I usually use to put flashes on light stands. On the other end, I mounted a Kodak Duaflex II that I got from friend and awesome food photographer Tim Broyer. I actually stole the idea from him. (But to be fair, he stole it from someone else.)

Between the two cameras, I used a stretched out dryer tube covered by the sleeve of an old black shirt, and of course, a good bit of tape and glue.

My personal favorite is a series of three (including the one above) from Raleigh's Boylan Street Bridge, which overlooks the city from the west.

The image looks like it could be from an old medium format, but it's much easier to manipulate as a digital. I may lose some street cred for not developing in a darkroom, but I think the photo printed well, and I don't regret saving the time and money.

For those of you looking for printing tips, friend and fellow photographer Ronny suggested White House Custom Color for prints, and I was totally satisfied. Cheap, quality prints and free two-day shipping? Yes, please.

The remaining First Friday photos (that were film, which is why they're missing from that Flickr page), were done with a stereo camera. But more to come on that later.