Getting back together with Diana.

It's been a few years since I properly used my Diana. I mainly stopped using it because the photo quality started worsening. It became disappointing to spend a lot of money on the lomo film and end up with very few good photos. I decided the poor quality was due to light leaks and I guess I just thought the cheap camera was toast.

In anticipation of Japan I decided to give Lomography another try; mainly because I can't think of a better place than Japan to take lomos. An additional factor that made my Diana seem more attractive is that lately I've been feeling super overwhelmed by technology. The ease of using the Diana and knowing that you sort of just get what you get with it, rather than taking retakes until a photo is perfect or adding a bunch of filters to it really appealed to my mood lately.

Rather than buy a new Diana I thought I'd tape up my old one and see if it would help with the light leaks. To my (stupid) surprise I noticed that my camera had been set so that the shutter was on manual. Duh. This is definitely why so many photos turned out too bright. That made me hopeful.

Here are some of the better photos from my first roll of Dianas. I'm pleased to see that many turned out. They're not great but I learned a lot from this roll. 1)Don't set the camera to keep the shutter open 2)I need to center my image and then bring the camera up just a titch so as not to cut off the top of the image and 3)Using the flash is really the best way to go no matter what. I'm so excited to practice with a couple more rolls before I bring this baby to Japan. I think I like the quality of the photos even more after they're run through my scanner. Welcome back Diana. I forgot how much I loved you.

I took a ton of photos at the MN Zoo, which was a great opportunity to toy with light. This is the only one that even remotely turned out and I love it because it's creepy flamingos.

Josh and I took a date night to some Japanese restaurants to truly try out the Japanese Diana vibe.

Easily my favorite photo of a crabby Bowie.

Last (but not least) a perfect example of a side by side. I don't know why this turned out like this. As usual my little Diana always has a surprise in store.