i’d rather be working for a paycheck than waiting to win the lottery

there are so many wonderful things happening outside while we're stuck inside, studying...

we did go for a little walk. that might not seem very momentous to you, but it is a big deal for us. we almost feel guilty leaving the house at all, so for only a few minutes at a time we rush to grab food and necessitites before speeding home to study and finish our final projects.

so a walk is a big deal.

love,
r&y

ps. there's one of my studying songs.  looking for suggestions for more...

canon a-1

a mine of felicity

here's a perfect belly.

little emma is coming so soon. but she and her husband have been ready for a long, long time. 

i'm so happy for them.

love,
r&y

"if i have not spoken, it is because i am afraid i will awaken myself from this dream..." jane austen, emma.

 

taken on our canon a-1 (silly mamiya ran out of batteries...)

vacancy: living room available

my brother in law, the future insanely successful lawyer, stayed with us for a few weeks in december. best. roomate. ever. not only did he do the dishes regularly, provide animated entertainment for the 45 minute train ride into school each morning (for me and my fellow subway travellers...), and humoured me by watching my favourite movies with me, but he also proved very handy at minute projects that tyler loves to do and i am not patient enough to love, yet...  (above: test pictures taken with the mamiya 645 kodak portra 400)

and then my sister came in january. we found our dream home in a deserted town in michigan. do not be so easily repulsed. this house was once a gorgeous mansion, and so it will be again one day, when we're done with it... taking a peak in the windows, you can see beautiful stained glass windows, hard wood floors, and even lace curtains.  we do believe it was meant, and left, for us. (below: pictures taken with the canon a1)

however, we now have a vacancy in our living room. accepting all applicants for any amount of time you'd like to stay. air mattress very comfy and lots of blankets and food available.

we like visitors...

love,
r&y

ps. we're thinking about moving home this way. we think it might be easier than packing everything in boxes...

where there is a sea, there are pirates

we found our very own pirate ship about forty-five minutes from our house.  that basically makes us pirates. we can't imagine how pirates sailed into lake ontario... but trapped by a manmade stone wall, we imagine these pirates, realizing their ship could not escape, abandoned ship and hitch hiked home on the QEW.

we parked in a snow drift along the lake, stood in the cold for an hour to take pictures (these with our canon a-1, others on a roll that we've lost...), and we spent another hour pushing our car out of the snow drift. and by we, i mean i sat in the car trying not to spin out while tyler pushed...

the long exposure made the full moon as bright as the sun.  but i promise it was night. and cold.

love,

r&y

here's another story about where this ship came from. but i'm pretty sure mine story is the correct one.

one thousand and one words...

tyler and i love to take pictures with film cameras. although our relationship with said film cameras can be trying (like, when you have taken a whole roll of film and realize it wasn't loaded correctly and you actually haven't taken a single shot...or when the battery on the light meter is low and most of your pictures of new york city are underexposed...or when old cameras get a bit, well, old and only one picture turns out from an entire roll...), the times when we see a picture we took and it takes our breath away, or we can't stop looking at it, make it all worth it.

we thought we would share with you our cameras:

my grampa's ikoflex. we fell in love with film using this camera. thank you grampa j.

our polaroids. we love them. even if film is too expensive to actually use them.

my birthday present: a 1933 kodak brownie. we sat in the dark for half an hour blindly playing with film to try and re-roll 120mm film onto a 620mm roll (they don't make 620 anymore...). we think we may have got it, but we have yet to develop our film. if it didn't work out, it is still excellent to take pictures of...

a camera i've had for years, but has only been used as a decoration/conversation piece.  now that we (hopefully) know how to re-roll 120 film, we will be playing with this soon...

we found these in the spring at a garage sale for $10.  we had no idea what we got ourselves into, and they changed our lives forever. they might be enjoying retirement at the moment, but we bring them out to play on occasion.

this is the camera we take most of our pictures with now: a canon a-1. and we love it. a lot.

and finally, my other birthday present: a 16mm movement camera. i love it. i love holding it. i love playing with it. and i can't wait until i have the time and money to film with it. film for it is just too darn expensive to buy and process. but one day, something glorious will be filmed with it that will blow all other home videos to smithereens.

that is all. for now.

love,

r&y

photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. what you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything. - aaron siskind