Civilized Protest

In keeping with my Spain theme for the week...  These are photos I took in Madrid a couple of weeks ago. The protests were (and are) still going on when we arrived with the main square in Madrid being full of tents and daily speeches.  It was all very civilized.  At the first speech that we heard everyone was waving flowers in lieu of clapping and at some of the other speeches we saw the crowds would quietly wiggle their hands in the air instead of clapping.  That sort of reserve could never be found in this country with our loud opinions and love of clapping but it was fun to watch.

While traveling throughout Spain we saw similar protests and smaller tent cities in nearly every city that we visited.

Angus & Mathilda Mixed Media

I started a series of small mixed media collages a couple weeks back and am just now finally finishing them.  They're based on a set of old black & white photos that I found in Portland last month.

Don't Underestimate the Baby

In the spring I picked up a Kodak Baby Brownie Special camera for about $2 on eBay.  The listing was about 3 words long and I had no idea if the camera would work, but for $2 it was worth the risk.

I really like these cameras because they're tiny and you can shoot square pictures on the 127 film.  I like square pictures and I like small cameras, so we were the perfect match.  When my mother saw it she said that the Baby Brownie Special was her first camera as a kid and she loved it.  So it only seems appropriate that one found it's way into my hands and now after getting my first photos back, I love it too.

Sadly I should note that while I'm excited about taking square photos on this camera, I had the setting wrong and my first rolls didn't come out square.  Doh!

This is my Baby Brownie Special.  To give you some perspective if you've never seen one, it's about 2 1/2 inches (6 cm) tall.

A Rare Gray Day in Denver

 Few weeks ago on one of the wonderful but oh-so-rare gray days in Denver, hubdude and I rode our cruisers downtown to explore and we both had new cameras to test out.  I recently got an old Italian camera, a Bencini Koroll CMF, that shoots 120.  The camera itself is incredibly beautiful and I'm really happy with these first photos from it too, though I could have used a bit more light.  And I love that I can shoot square photos with it.

This first one is an old church in our neighborhood.  Denver has dozens of really old stone and brick churches.  They're beautiful and I'm always fascinated by their proud steeples shooting into the sky.  I rarely seem to photograph any other part of the churches.

This is shot from the top deck of the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art.  It's a great place to get coffee and you usually have the deck and the view to yourself.  Well worth the price of a membership.  The second photo is the roof above the deck.