fuji

Week 19: Fuji Instax in the 1940's /  by Jacqui Booth

I thought I'd cut myself some slack this for this week and take the Fuji Instax along to work, of sorts.  Handily, the Little Bird SOS studio is at Greenacres, at the North end of the Great Central Railway and there's often events going on outside the door, so Lisa and I opened the shop and whilst she made items to sell, I spent the day stocking the shop up with donated wool, which took AGES.  Surely such a simple task should have been quicker?

I got waylaid by Lisa’s yarnstormed bike though first…

Here’s our gaff.  The view from here across Leicester is pretty good.

It wasn’t until the end of the day that I nipped out to see the stalls and say hello to some of the reenactors who’d been camping out there for the weekend.  This Is Vintage Amor who tempted me with a red snakeskin effect vanity case…which smells of powder and is now full of film cameras.  Ahem.

This impressed my lad…

And this nice bloke, who had the gift of the gab and also enjoyed being a ‘scary’ German on the trains, is from Feldjagerkorps 44, a living history/re-enactment group.

I should have taken more photos of the women, who looked amazing.  They made me want to wear a dress too!  Unfortunately my Pearl Lowe tea dress makes me look like Grayson Perry.

And then it was time for the corporate photo to be renewed. I decided that I rather liked the 1940’s when two smartly suited gentlemen insisted on helping me out of the chair.  Hell, sometimes it’s nice to feel like a gal.

52 Rolls Week 8: Fuji Instax. Abandoned office and a new beginning. /  by Jacqui Booth

I’m losing my way a bit here, but bear with me.  I knew there’d be glitches.

So – time to call in the Instax.  And a lunchtime trip to an abandoned office with the house mamil.  Fortunately,  I consider this perhaps more of a treat than a ribbon wrapped box from Pandora.  I think.  Okay, I’ve never actually experienced that but I’m pretty sure that half an hour spent with oddly itchy legs, carefully seeking out solid bits of floor whilst hoping nothing disturbed the falling in ceiling at that very moment is much much more the thing for me.

I’ve got mixed feelings about ‘urban exploring’, ‘ruin porn’ and that whole shebang but this was fun.  The water had poured through the roof, bringing down the false ceiling and great clods of insulation which let the light flood in, so it appeared to be illuminated.  I picked my way over loose parquet floor (which I figured must have been laid on a solid foundation) and felt a little better when I deduced that the pile of poo on a block of foam definitely wasn’t human.  I didn’t much fancy opening the door at the back of the office though…

The outdoor shots, still taken on auto, were over exposed.  I rather liked the mossy carpet at the back of the building and temporarily developed a strange infatuation with a tree that had grown in a rather tiny enclosed concrete square where the building didn’t quite tessellate.  Plucky little tree.

And then – to my amusement – I experienced that age old problem.  Two shots to take before the end of the ‘roll’.  So, the camera popped out in the rain to visit our new Little Bird SOS studio space.  It’s just on the edge of Leicester so we’ll get to gaze upon the National Space Centre from the balcony.  Expect to see a lot more of this scene, though hopefully slightly less grey!

And then it was time to have stab at parenting.  This photo is from my (brave) spot on The Teenager’s bed as I threw forward bits of design based help I’m sure he didn’t really need.  We’ve often spoken of the importance of taking photos of the ordinary and the lack of record of my teenage bedroom, which was some distance from ordinary and now only exists in folklore. Think Joe Orton’s/Kenneth Halliwell’s room crossed with the trappings of a teenage goth and you’re about there. For some strange reason my parents saw fit to obliterate it when I left.

Z keeps a much less alarming room, even though he’s inherited my noticeboard and doodlings.  I’ve just noticed that’s one of the first film shots I took and printed over his PC.  Aww.  Anyway, he’d actually asked me to take a proper picture to document his room so we’ll call this flash assisted effort a test shot.

NB.  I do not have a cat to waste my last frames on.  Well, I do – but I’ll need to dig her up.

This blog was first published on 52rolls.net