The Local Vine

wine and cheese
Originally uploaded by gapey

Went to The Local Vine Tuesday night with a couple friends for a $5 wine tasting of Australian wines. They are probably my most favorite wines. Shiraz's are probably my most favorite.

There was a time when I hated red wines and only dranik whites, mostly Chardonnay. Now I'm pretty much the opposite. I don't even remember the last time I drank a white wine.

$5 at The Local Vine gets you 3 tastes of wines. If you buy any bottles the $5 fee is waved. I bought a bottle of the 2003 Shingleback Cabernet Sauvignon. We stayed and shared a bottle of the 2005 Cotes du Rhone and a couple different cheeses. I would definitely go back.

They have wine tastings every Tuesday. I would definitely go back.

Restaurants,

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My first film SLR

My first film SLR
Originally uploaded by gapey

Film? Film? I never woulda thought I'd be shooting film again after going digital. Digital cameras were the awesomest invention evar. No money spent on film developing, no waiting for film to get developed, no spending money on film. Going digital was like a dream come true.

So why did I buy it? I'm still wondering that myself. I guess mostly for something new. There are still a surprisingly large number of film users out there. My first film camera since going digital was a Holga. It was cheap and my Flickr Meetup group had a Holga day at Pike Place one day so I thought what the heck I'll give it a try. After four rolls of film I only got a few decent shots. What can you expect from a $30 camera? There are people that get some pretty good results out of them though. One thing I learned is to use at least 400 speed film and to be sure to tape the back because it is likely to fall off if you don't. There isn't much to those cameras. Only two settings to worry about.

My new cam on the other hand is an SLR with sliders and buttons and nobs all over. I would be totally lost on how to use the thing if I had bought it a year ago. It's really not all that different than a digital SLR. This camera in particular though only has aperature priority and manual modes. No shutter priority.

Mike talked me into using some slide film which I think I've only ever used on accident and didn't see any reason to use it. Well there's this thing called cross processing you can do with it which could give some interesting results. So we'll see what happens.

Yesterday the Seattle Flickr group had a meetup for film only cameras and I was surprised to see how large of a turnout we had. I think there were at least 30 people and it was a beautiful day. I actually bought this camera on the way to the meetup. It didn't take too long for me to figure out how to use it. The body itself was $89 and the lens was $49. I'm sure I could have found the camera for a lot cheaper on ebay but I needed it now and since I bought it at Kenmore Camera I knew it would be in good working condition and it also comes with a 60 Day warranty which I think is worth the extra money. I also got a free neck strap which I late found it says Canon on it. Though it's pretty discreet and you can't see it says Canon without looking really close as it's engraved into the leather.

I decided to stick with the aperature priority mode for my first roll of film. Once I get more comfortable with it I may go manual. I'm looking forward to some more fun with this camera.

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Flickr Videos!

Macchu Picchu
Originally uploaded by gapey

Wow, you can now post videos on Flickr. Though the limit is 90 seconds, which some people are complaining about but think it's fine. I doubt I will post many as I don't have a video camera other than what's on my old Olympus Point & Shoot. I have a few crappy ones from Burningman and this one from a trip to Macchu Picchu in Peru in 2007.

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Zenzizenzizenzic Burlesque Shoot

Rabelle De la Rose
Originally uploaded by gapey

I finally got the opportunity to check out Nic's new Light Labs Studio. I got to take some photos of 6 talented girls from the new Zenzizenzizenzic burlesque troupe. It was a little different than most shoots I've gone to as in half the time is spent setting up the lighting. I showed up and all the lights were in place and only had to wait a little while for the models to get ready. If I'm to do more of this kind of thing, I think I will need to get more memory cards. I filled up my 4 GB and some of an extra 1GB card I brought. I was even chimping and deleting pics as I shot. I would have liked to shoot even more as a few of the good pics I got were not completely in focus an it's hard to tell on the small camera screen.

More photos from the shoot can be found on my Zenzizenzizenzic Flickr set.

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