Apr 27, 2011

In all their out-of-focus glory

It was a bit of wishful thinking on my part that maybe after a few months of neglect, the Canon EOS 3 would work properly again. Lemme sum up the issue - the camera took a tumble onto tile floor back in January, the 50mm f1.8 died, and the camera seemed superficially ok until I realized the focus was just a tad off in every picture. It seemed to be focusing on stuff behind what I intended it to focus on. I was feeling hopeful anyway, and I had a few rolls of 35mm film left and wanted to give it one more try.

Last Friday (a glorious day off), I brought the camera to Brooklyn and shot though two rolls of Fuji 400H (I do love this film but sadly wasted it on these OOF shots). Let's admire what these pictures could have been, shall we? Although at this small size, it's hard to really tell...

First up, we have Cafe Pedlar, a kind of bare-bones cafe with only so-so light unless you grab the tables by the windows. I was mildly disappointed because I think I had built it up in my head to be a really charming cafe with fantastic light, but there actually wasn't much that stood out there.

Jimmy orders a cortado 95% of the time, and I almost always go with a drip or cappuccino. The coffee was fine. The giant biscuit with jelly was even better. We still wanted a proper lunch though so Yelp led us to a place a few blocks away called Ted & Honey.

This place was adorable! Stray newspapers on the communal tables, wooden furniture galore, and exposed brick walls - yes, yes and yes. It was a bit crowded so I didn't go all out shooting, but it was really cute and cozy.

I noticed Cobble Hill (the Brooklyn neighborhood we were in) was chock-full of beautiful brownstones with enviably large windows. When I was a freshman in college, I dreamed very specifically of owning one of these... I obviously had no intention of being a photographer back then because I had ambitions to make millions. Oh well, sorry, Mom and Dad. :P

8 comments :

  1. These are wonderful, Alice.
    Love them all :)

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  2. amazing shots, do you sell any of yoyr work!

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  3. Great shots capturing every interesting bits at these places overcoming any focusing issue.

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  4. The soft colors in these are so lovely. And now these have me thinking I might have to dust off my old Canon Rebel film camera from high school if I can get it a 50 1.8 lens!

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  5. "Ted & Honey" is just the perfect name. I would be all up snapping pics in there. My kinda place!

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  6. Great set of photos Alice. You're right, at this size, it is really hard to tell whether they are out of focus but you made the most of the light and the setting!

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  7. Haha, I love how you write that you were "disappointed because you built in up in your head to be a charming cafe" but from the pics you took I think it does look charming! You definitely have an eye! :)

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  8. well at this size, the focus looks fine! If you hadn't said, would we have known? The way you captured what light you had available is amazing…..

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