Frugal Film Project

I wanted to do this back in January but it was cold out there and I forgot.

The Frugal Film Project is an internet challenge to buy a cheap camera and shoot a roll of cheap(ish) film through it every month for a year. The rule used to be that you had to grab the camera for under $50 but that was before prices ballooned during the pandemic so now it’s $75.

I bought my little Soviet TLR camera, a Lomo Lubitel 166 Universal, for about $40 so it qualifies. You’re supposed to use budget film but I don’t think such a thing actually exists anymore. Even cheap film is grossly expensive. I am going to play this game with the Lubitel and Kodak Gold 200 film. I started it on Memorial Day at Riverside Park in Methuen, a couple of weeks ago, so month number one is May 2025. I’ve already shot a roll in June too, in Harvard Square, but I won’t get that developed for a couple of weeks.

The camera only shoots 12 pics to a roll and (magically, for me) all 12 on the May roll came out okay. Here they are……..

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AirPlay Fail

I’m trying to listen to a Jefferson Airplane playlist on my iPhone and have it stream over to the HomePod on the shelf above my desk.

It keeps crapping out on me. Failure is the theme for this day.

Robin stares off into infinity, pondering the mystery of audio streaming between two Apple devices.

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Photo a Day Fail

It’s gorgeous out today. I have windows open in almost every room in the house. Eventually it will be too warm outside for that and I will close them all and let the central air take over. For now though, let’s enjoy the breeze.

Robin was sitting in front of the dining room window, as she often does. I lined up a shot for today’s photo a day, as I often do…

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She saw me coming and decided that rather than play the role of the model, she wanted some attention. She ran away just as I was about to press the shutter. She ran right over to me and demanded I pet her.

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So now this is the photo a day photo instead of the cat in the window I was trying to get. Either way… adorable.

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Flickr is Down

I’m working in the office today so it was very important that I take a pic or two before I left the house so that I would not forget and put my photo a day challenge thing in jeopardy. I used the Hipstamatic app and took a bunch of cat pics. All is well.

Except…

Flickr appears to be down today. At best the service has been intermittent. It works for a minute, then it doesn’t. I got today’s pics uploaded, but adding tags and permissions and albums has been difficult.

I wanted to try to sneak in a photo a day post here, but I can’t get to the pics right now. Let’s all send some happy thoughts to Flickr. Hang in there, folks. You’ve got this… whatever it is. Good luck!

Substack

Right folks, what are our thoughts on Substack? I subscribe to a handful of them but I only ever actually read stuff from the guitar player who used to be in The Blake Babies (and I’m just thinking that it is really getting to be time for another Blake Babies reunion record, don’t we think?) and one film photographer from youtube who lives somewhere in the wilds of New Hampshire. Truthfully, I don’t read every post from those two users but I read some of them. Sorry.

My first thought when I learned about Substack was nope, I’m too old for that shit. The Blake Babies guy is older than I am though… he’s also 100 times cooler and a lawyer (yikes) and his cred level is 100000000 times mine… though any number that quantifies your credibility is higher than my complete and total lack of credibility, right?

My second thought was… it’s an email newsletter. Anyone who would be dumb enough to subscribe to mine would mark me as spam within a couple of days of my pointless brain droppings.

Still… am I thinking about it? No… but… yeah, no.

What else, what else… new camera coming soon. The USPS tracking number says it will arrive on Saturday. That doesn’t give me any time to shoot and develop a test roll before I go on vacation, but I had already decided not to bring a film camera on vacation this time. I’m going all digital on this trip.

Part of my initial film camera attraction was using fully manual, mechanical cameras. I didn’t want any automation at all. I didn’t want anything electronic. This time? The new camera has autofocus. Oh praise be, it has autofocus! I’m getting blinder by the minute and manually focusing is a bitch. Wearing bifocals (well, progressive lenses) makes it so much worse. Now I am going to be able to autofocus with film and oh how the heavens will sing in gleeful glee.

What else? This is traditionally the longest week of the working man’s life. The full work week before a vacation. One day down, four endlessly long and painful days to go. But hey, there’s a new camera and a vacation at the end of it! There’s two carrots on the end of this week’s stick. The best part? Both kids are coming on this trip. We’re going as a full family. How cool is that? Both kids are in their 20’s and we can still get them to come on vacation with us. Life is pretty fucking cool sometimes, don’t you think?

I should join Substack and write a big article about it.