Bolex…

I’m taking some undergrad classes this semester (like the one about History of Photography, for instance) related to photography and movie making. One of them is called “16mm Film Production” in which we are learning how to film using 16mm stock, how to develop the film in a dark room, and how to cut and splice it. By the end of the semester, we’ll learn how to digitalize our projects so I’ll probably upload my final project here when it’s done!

Our assignment this week was to “adapt” a haiku, meaning we had to choose one of these traditional 3-verse Japanese poems, film some footage using a Bolex camera, and then we have to develop the film and come up with a final product. For this assignment I chose this Basho’s haiku:

28

Another haiku?

Yet more cherry blossoms-

not my face.

I decided to go to Sarah Duke Gardens to film some nature, some clouds, some trees. Although I didn’t film a cherry blossom, an idea for the final verse popped up: I film the case for the camera in the foreground and a pond in the background, so viewers would notice that even though my face was not featured in the film (I was “the guy behind the camera”), the case highlighted my presence over the entire course of the filming. We’ll see what my professor has to say when the final version is done…

Of course, I brought my camera and took some pictures of the gardens -and the case as well! What about this abstract self-portrait, for instance?

A friend of mine told me that if Bolex cameras were more popular among hipsters, they would be out of stock right now. That gave me the idea of taking a “vintage hipster” picture of the case! (Nope, I didn’t use Instagram, just in case you were wondering; pun intended…)

I’m very excited about this class, and, like I mentioned above, hopefully I’ll post my final product by the end of the semester. Wish me luck!…