London Trip Snaps

Can't call it a vacation exactly.  A trip.  The kind where need guidebooks and your phone tells you that you've walked an average of six miles a day. The kind where the kids complain when you insist on taking the tube instead of a taxi (again).  Also the kind where you start to feel like a local. 

We have rented flats in several cities now instead of hotels:  San Francisco, London (both through airbnb), Rome (Romeloft.com) and it suits our family perfectly.  Traveling as a family of five means at least two hotel rooms, which quickly adds up and also means lots of restaurant meals.  With two very picky eaters and one with a long list of food allergies, having a kitchen suits us much better. 

So London in August, which felt a bit like New York in late October.  Which is not so bad.

 The flat I lived in while studying abroad in college.  (above)

Discovering Film and Toy Cameras.

I won't even try to recap what has happened since I was last here. At this point, the blog is just a shell, and I'm going to leap right back in and pretend it was just a few days ago.

I wanted a place to put some images I got back from the camera store yesterday, and a place to journal my photo experiences.  I am so much happier with my second roll of film -- Fuji Superia 800 and this toy camera -- the Black Slim Devil, purchased after a bit of a seminar I caught on creativelive.com -- than I was after roll number one.

I am somewhat in love with these images, especially the first one.  I loved shooting without knowing what I had captured.  It does make you much more disciplined about pressing that shutter and thinking about the composition.  Forgot what that feels like. And second, I find getting to know this camera kind of a thrill. I am trying to figure out how to use all of the fixed settings to get the most from each image.  This camera has a very wide lens, like a 24mm, a closed aperature -- like an F16 and a pretty fast shutter.  So, a bright light, fast action toy it is.