My Hipstamatic makes it hip to be square

I’ve taken a lot of pictures during this trip. In fact, Scott and I are swimming in pictures — some good, some bad and some we won’t show. I take them with my fancy digital camera, my not-so-fancy Holga, my underwater point-and-shoot and, of course, my iPhone.

A camera is an essential for any traveler. But I have to admit that the versatility of my iPhone sometimes makes carrying three cameras seem, well, excessive. The iPhone is pretty amazing. Its camera rivals point-and-shoot cameras I’ve shot with, and it allows us to share pictures with friends and family with ridiculous ease and immediacy. As if it couldn’t get any better, the iPhone offers dozens of cool photography applications that turn mediocre pictures into something more.

Take for example, one of my favorite photo apps — the Hipstamatic.

This popular app adds vignettes, discoloration and rough edges to your digital image. The artful distortion varies depending on the lens and “film” style you choose. The basic Hipstamatic download, which costs $1.99, features three lenses (John S., Jimmy and Kaimal), three film options (Blanko, Ina’s 1969 and Kodot Verichrome), and two vintage flashes (Standard and Dreampop). Additional lenses and film are available via 99 cent bundled downloads.

As with other iPhone apps, a swipe of the fingertip lets you change settings on the Hipstamatic, and artificial sounds — a clacking shutter, a gently buzzing flash — heighten the sense of reality and nostalgia.

The Hipstamatic is effortless and groovy, and you don’t have to be a pro to make interesting pictures with it. This messes with my instincts and work ethic as a photographer. For me, making a good photo has always been hard; it’s about quality of light, quality of subject and the quality of my eye. The Hipstamatic is a cheat. In mere seconds it makes images that would take hours to create in Photoshop.

Still, after learning more about the Hipstamatic, I feel less like a schmuck for falling in love with it. The makers of the app are paying homage to the original Hipstamatic, which was an actual film camera. The back of the camera’s body as it appears on the iPhone’s screen looks just like the back of the original plastic camera, which sold for $8 in the early ’80s.

The Hipstamatic was born out of a passion for photography and conceptualized by two art students in a Wisconsin cabin. Brothers Bruce and Winston Dorbowski loved the Kodak Instamatic and set out to build a camera “even a child could afford on a small allowance.”  They designed and built such a camera, and sold it through a local electronic store.

There’s no telling how big the Hipstamatic could have been. The Dorbowski brothers produced only 157 before they died in a car accident in 1984. The were killed by a drunk driver. Three years ago, however, their older brother Richard created a simple blog about the creation of the Hipstamatic. The website is a celebration of his two brothers, who were dubbed by neighbors as the “crazy hippies on the lake.” On a post dated July, 29, 2009, Richard wrote, “Today I met with two young gentleman that want to bring back the Hipstamatic … well, sort of.”

Those gentleman were software designers, of course, and their visit with Richard Dorbowski lead to the creation of an iPhone app that has been downloaded more than a million times.

I doubt the Dorbowski brothers could have imagined the Hipstamatic’s phenomenal success, let alone its reincarnation as an app for the iPhone, but I’m sure they would be thrilled that so many people — even kids with small allowances — have access to it. “It doesn’t matter if the photos aren’t prefect,” Bruce Dorbowski once said. “As long as people are capturing memories, I will be happy.”

One App Store reviewer thanked the makers of the Hipstamatic app for creating a “program for the ‘photo-stupid’ among us.” Professional photographers aren’t always so complimentary. Many see it as one more gimmick that cheapens their art form. As one photographer I greatly admire put it: “The proliferation of imagery lately is slowly sucking the creativity out of photography.”

Maybe. I admit that I sometimes feel a little dirty when I take pictures with my Hipstamatic app instead of my fancy Canon. But other times, when I’m in harsh midday light and feeling like a tourist, I just want to make a picture instead of a fuss with my gear. That’s when the Hipstamatic is my best friend. It lets me enjoy the moment, be silly, feel like a kid. I think the Dorbowski brothers would dig that.

— Jill

October 26, 2010 | Jill | Tags: , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Why is a cow standing behind that Prada store?

There I am, on the side of a two-lane highway in rural West Texas — sweaty, dirty, hair in a bun. I can smell my feet, and I’m standing up. Yet, improbably, I’m looking into the windows of a Prada store.

It’s a small, square building with awnings that bear the Prada name. Inside, the fine handbags and shoes the Italian fashion label is famous for are neatly displayed.

But this roadside boutique isn’t really a boutique at all — it’s an art installation completed in 2005 by Scandinavian artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset. It’s called “Prada Marfa” — even though it’s not quite in Marfa, Texas, but 35 miles down the road in Valentine.

I first learned about Prada Marfa through the images of Allison V. Smith, a Texas-based photographer who documented Marfa before it was cool to document Marfa. I fell in love with her perfect square photos, especially the one of the stucco and adobe structure on the side of the road.

As we drove along Highway 90, I knew the installation was nearby, but I didn’t know exactly where. This allowed me to experience Prada Marfa as I assume its creators intended — snapping my head around as we drove past at 80 miles per hour, then turning the car around to take a closer look.

The artsy town of Marfa is one of the destinations I’ve most wanted to see, and (much to Scott’s grumbling dismay), I rushed us through the Guadalupe Mountains to get to it.

Prada Marfa obviously doesn’t belong in this flat landscape of pastures, train tracks and tumble weeds. The building’s windows are large, the awnings are crisp, and lights illuminate the designer goods after nightfall. The artists who created this bizarre installation plan to let it slowly disintegrate into the natural landscape. Barring a twister, the building could stand for a millennium, outlasting even Prada itself. (In case you’re wondering, Prada Marfa has not escaped vandals. Three days after its completion thieves made off with 14 right-footed shoes and six handbags. The graffiti has since been painted over and the store “restocked.”)

In my current life as a road tripper, I have no need for high heels or luxury fashions. I think about the $750 price tag for a pair of Prada shoes, and I calculate that it equates to two week’s worth of accommodations, meals and gas. There are no designer shoes back in my closet in Phoenix, either, and I only know one person who actually owns Pradas. But that’s not to say I wouldn’t love a pair — they’re beautiful.

Once, while picking through the cluttered shoe aisles at Nordstrom’s Last Chance, I actually got to touch a pair of Pradas. They were black pumps, precariously resting at the top of the size 7 rack. I think I may have gasped. I tried them on and took a few steps, admiring the shoes’ beauty below the frayed hem of my Gap jeans. They were marked down to $295 from $900. I put them back on the rack.

I’m not one of those people who scoffs at the extravagancies of high fashion. I respect it. In my most recent job, I photographed fashion. I drew inspiration from the incredibly stylish women I worked with, all of whom treated their ensembles like works of art. To me, that’s what high fashion is — art. That’s why I think Prada Marfa so smart.

Preserved inside this little stucco building on a straight-as-an-arrow highway in West Texas, these gorgeous goods are more apt to be admired than coveted. There are no price tags, no shoppers, no trappings of materialism. The doors don’t open — for anybody. You can’t pick up a pair of heels and say, “I would never pay that for a pair of shoes,” and you can’t judge someone who would. These Pradas are still out of reach — but they’re out of reach the way a Michelangelo painting is out of reach. The concept of “buying power” has been rendered powerless.

I’ll never attain Prada shoes, but at least I finally have a photograph of Prada Marfa. My photo is not as good as Allison V. Smith’s, but it’s a memory and a feeling and a piece of art all rolled into one, and those are the things I really covet.

—Jill

July 27, 2010 | Jill | Tags: , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Bisbee, AZ: Quirky enough for film

The cracked concrete and peeling paint of Bisbee’s exteriors is eye candy for a photographer with a Holga camera. This old copper-mining town is roughly aged, yet an influx of artists has dusted off the grit just enough to uncover the place’s quirk and class. Bisbee is a blend of the antiquated, new age and plain ol’ old. It’s the perfect subject for a camera that prides itself on recreating photographs from the past, with square negatives, faded colors and random imperfections.

Created in the early 1980s as a medium-format toy camera, the Holga has attracted a cult following. It’s a lightweight, plastic, film camera that requires little technical skill. All you need is a daydreamer’s curiosity and some sunshine. All of this kid-like fun can be had for 30 bucks, plus the cost of film. It brings us photographers back to the days before DPI, RAW and JPEG. It’s just shooting because you love taking pictures.

The best part of shooting with a Holga is not knowing exactly what you’ll get. You see, because of its fantastic plastic construction, the Holga leaks light. This will do one of two things to your photo: make it groovy or flat-out destroy it. In a photography world full of sure things and magical tricks—thanks to giant LCD screens, autofocus and Photoshop—the whimsical Holga makes me feel like a real rebel.

—Jill

March 31, 2010 | Jill | Tags: , , , | 8 Comments »

Santa Monica, CA

Santa Monica is one of those places that, as a photographer, makes me laugh. It’s so perfect—too perfect. It also makes me want to reach for my Holga or Polaroid. I’m faking the funk in this picture, with my Mark II and a few silly Photoshop actions. There’s something about this beach. It could be the ’50s, ’70s, ’90s or now. It all looks the same—timeless and perfectly Californian.

—Jill

January 10, 2010 | Jill | Tags: , , , , | 4 Comments »

Car trouble

The first step in cleaning the garage is backing out the vehicle that occupies it. The vehicle that occupies our garage is a 2003 Honda CRV. It belongs to Jill, and it serves as her roving office.

And let’s just say Jill does not keep a tidy office.

Pompeii. Oscar Madison’s closet. The Collyer brothers’ apartment. These are places less cluttered than the interior of Jill’s car, which on any given day is a panorama of paper scraps, business cards, stray pennies, Taco Bell bags, gum wrappers, AA batteries, uncapped Sharpies, melted lip balm and half-full Nalgene bottles.

Also strewn about are clothes — sweaters, scarves, socks, boots, the occasional bra — and jewelry — hoop earrings, bracelets, twisted chains of unprecious metal — all of which seemingly starts the morning on Jill’s person only to be shed during the course of her peripatetic workday.

Then there is the photo gear. Sweet Jesus, the photo gear. Monopods, tripods, light stands. Reflectors, diffusers, strobes. Tangled cords, orphaned lens caps, crinkled gels.

And everything covered in dog hair.

I sit in the driver’s seat and survey this mess. Then I look at the odometer: 129,571 miles. The keyless entry doesn’t work. Recently the transmission has been issuing a loud clunk between reverse and first gear. Hard turns at parking-lot speed have long generated vibrations in the front wheels — little seizures that we’ve grown accustomed to over the years but now, sitting alone in the garage, suddenly give me a pang of worry.

Can we really take this thing across the country?

Later in the day, driving this trusty yet disheveled steed home from lunch, Jill and I pass the corridor of car dealerships along Camelback Road. I see the big blue Honda sign and hang a hard right. The front wheels vibrate.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Let’s just look around,” I say. “This is purely exploratory.”

Of course, the last thing we need as jobless wayfarers is a new car payment. But maybe we could sell the CRV and my car and buy a used van or a bigger SUV. Something that better fits our crazy quest. It’s not like we haven’t talked about it.

As soon as our shoes touch the car-lot pavement, a salesman materializes from the rows of glinting sheet metal. He is 150 pounds of desperation wrapped in a baggy Men’s Wearhouse suit. This is before Cash for Clunkers. The lot is full of cars and devoid of shoppers. The hunger in the salesman’s eyes betrays a capacity for not just duplicity but raw evil. He reminds me of the roving flesh hunters in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. He makes me uncomfortable. I look at Jill; she is downright scared.

We circle a car. The salesman stalks us, three steps behind and gaining. The car is called the Element. We are clearly out of ours.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jill mutters to me. But I’m not leaving until the flesh hunter shows me how the front seats unfold. I’m curious as to whether they fold flat, merging with the rear seats to create a sleepable surface. Turns out they do.

In his desperation, the flesh hunter mistakes my mild intrigue for something more. He leaps straight from folding seats to financing, like a deluded rattlesnake striking at prey a mile away. I snap back to my senses. “We’re just looking today,” I tell him.

The flesh hunter follows us back to our CRV, proffering business cards and talking about trade-in values. I repeatedly click the “unlock” button on the key fob, to no avail. Jill opens the passenger-side door the old-fashioned way and reaches across to let me in. When I shut the door, the flesh hunter lingers outside it, a little too close, his eyes dead and his hand raised in a languid goodbye wave.

“We really need to get that key thing fixed,” Jill says. I make a mental note to look into that and a whole lot more.

—Scott

December 17, 2009 | Scott | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments »