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And to think I nearly sold it! I bought my “Lensbaby” years ago and used to enjoy playing with this funny little lens, which you push and pull around with your fingers to change the focal plane. Later versions got all fancy and let you lock your focal point in once you’d achieved it: mine is of the ‘hold your breath and shoot fast’ variety. Like many special-effect toys it can start to feel gimmicky when overused, and I think I’d got to that point, because it was sitting in the back of my drawer unloved.
But then this last weekend Karolina Stus and I were invited to Mandi Lynn’s house for a weekend of All Things Photography, and I decided to dust off the lensbaby and take it with me. I’m glad I did, because actually not everything has to have that swoopy lensbaby look that I am pretty bored with. It can be a bit more subtle than that, and it’s really fun to shoot with with everything out of focus (instead of having a ‘sweet spot’ that’s sharp). Here’s an example of how much it can transform things – this first shot is a tree with some parts in focus (well, nearly – I’m not good at getting anything tack sharp with this lens!), followed by the same shot with everything out of focus.
You can see why it’s kind of fun! This next shot of Mandi’s caravan shows the swoopy look that now feels gimmicky to me, but the following ones of her hammock have a bit of that effect without going so heavy-handed, and I do like the results.
A random cow that took my fancy:
And some afteroon shadows on the corrugated iron (taken with a regular lens but shot out of focus).
The lovely Mandi (in black and white) and Karolina (in colour). We’re still back on the regular lenses here. :)
And the grand finale – the amazing WOOKIE! He is Mandi’s angora rabbit and he was like a living soft toy. He’s actually washing his face in the final series but I deleted the ones where he was touching his nose, and it looked just like he was clapping. :)
How adorable is he?? Eva still hasn’t forgiven me for not smuggling him out of there…
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