It’s the 12th of the 12th of the 12th and that wont happen again for a thousand years, so it was the perfect day to have another go at my 12Faces project (last years is here).

So, in a nut shell…..

’12Faces’  is a one day personal photographic project whereby I go out into my town and approach 12 strangers and take their portrait with a Holga camera. The Holga is a cheap plastic camera (including plastic lens) that shoots medium format film (so only 12  square shots). No control over settings. A box with a hole in the front and some film in the back. Simple and gorgeous! One shot per person and all twelve have to be posted on-line within 12 hours from the click of the first shutter. So that’s develop the film, dry the negative, scan the negative, post the photos… in 12 hours!

….that was a big nut shell!

The day started with a bit of a hic-up (see below) and a couple of rejections (which take a bit of getting used to) but soon got going.

I’ll get on with showing the photos but not before saying a massive THANK YOU to those that allowed me to take their photograph…..

So there they are in all their wonderful characteristic glory. I’m very pleased with the way they came out. What do you think? Please leave comments below.

A slight hic-up

So i get into town at about 8:45am and grab a coffee to warm up and give me a chance to put the film in the camera. But what do I go and do?! I wind the film too far straight to shot 2!! On a Holga you cant wind back so I’ve lost a shot!  Having 11 shots is not good on a project called 12 Faces taking place on the 12th of the 12th 2012.The only way to roll the film back is to open up the camera! So I’m sat in Starbucks with my camera shoved in my jumper as a makeshift changing bag, trying not to let any light in, and manage to open it up and roll the film back. I succeed but decided not to risk using it for this project… but I don’t want to waste the whole roll of film.

So i spend the next half hour trying to use up the film by photographing any old, hopefully interesting, things around town! I shall be developing that roll very soon and we’ll see if there is anything good on it. A little 12Faces unexpected side project!

Luckily I brought with me a back-up roll of film so I stuck that in and 12Faces 2012 began! I hope you like it. Please leave comments….

You can get updates on twitter @swallowingflies #12Faces

Last year I set myself a challenge. Something to take me out of my ‘comfort zone’. I was to approach 12 strangers in my town and ask to photograph them. My camera of choice was the Holga which shoots 12 shots on a roll of medium format film. Then I added to the challenge by saying I had to take the photos, develop the photos and scan &  post the photos on-line  all within 12 hours!

You can see the results here

Well, the time has come again and what better date to do it than 12th of 12th 2012. So next Wednesday I will be out with my little plastic camera approaching strangers!

You can follow my progress via Twitter , if my hands aren’t so cold I cant type! Or follow the hashtag #12Faces

And don’t forget to come back to this blog on Wednesday evening for the results.

#12. Berserk will be taking a short break

Obligatory shout out to Miura.

#11. Streaming on Nico Nico

It says something about one’s attention span when the scrolling rainbow comments are more interesting than everything else that’s happening in the show.

#10. Guilty Buckethead Thursdays

Guilty Crown got too boring too fast. Not a good sign when you’re dozing off multiple times during a span of 20 minutes. One week, out of the blue, I thought I’d keep myself awake by placing my metal instrumentals folder on shuffle. At first, it was nothing more than a joke. Then something amazing happened. The show got better. Not only did I NOT have to sit through the cringe-inducing dialogue or the cancer-breeding characterization, but the show’s strong area (style) was actually magnified by the blasting of Buckethead ballads. Goodbye Egoist, and good riddance too.

In any case, what started out as Guilty Buckethead quickly branched into other shows. It worked quite well the first time, why not spread it around? Throw in a little No.Sixx or a little Fate John/Five and we got a party on Thursdays.

On a side note, iDOLM@STER nearly became iZZY@STRADLIN. But in the end, the music did grow on me (a feat indeed).

#9. First No Pan Night

Who else stayed up all night to watch the first live stream of No Pan Night? And by all night I mean all morning. IMAISHI-KUN IN THE HOUSE.

#8. Oh shit Jinni’s what are you doing?

What are they doing?

#7. Sweet Fiscal Conservatism

I had originally written Ben-to off as “just another show.” That is, until it turned out to be Pacific Mall the anime. It feels nice to be pleasantly surprised every now and then. Here we have Japanese kids assaulting each other over half-priced boxed lunches, the premise of which is so ridiculous it screams anime. With kids like these, it makes you wonder what would have become of the Lost Decade.

#6. If only I could make Dumplings like that

Anyone see this short bit from Chinese animation studio Wolfe Smoke? Yeah that’s right. Contrary to popular belief, my people can animate. The dude in charge, Jin-Roh, has some skill. Now they just need to take a page from Itano’s book and make those french fries DANCE.

#5. MAZINKAISER

Stay alive the deadly game you play
Burn the torch now to light the way
Stay alive to break down the wall
The time has come to make the final call

Are we standing on the edge of hope
The human race is on its way to destruction
Fire back to bring us back to life
We are the soldiers at the edge of time

MAZINKAISER
We are the soldiers of eternity
MAZINKAISER
Immortal god machine sets the world free

#4. We found the Fractal

Fractals are cool and rad, and I’m not just talking about Julia sets and Mandelbrot sets, but this entire concept of Fractal evolution. Fascinating stuff that makes for interesting science fiction premises. I’d even say that Fractals were to the noughties what cyberpunk was to the 80s in terms of sci-fi. Of course, we don’t use that term, opting instead to use “post-cyberpunk.”

Then there was the TV show “Fractale” and all 883 barrels of its Sierpinski glory, or so I thought.  It took me 6 episodes before realizing that the dark knight wasn’t about to tell anything resembling a coherent story. So I resorted to looking for something, ANYTHING that might justify its name. Kochs, Cantors, anything. Then came the last episode when they rode that elevator thing up into space or whatever. And on that floor…

#3. Thermodynamics = Serious Business

If I were Madoka, I would heed the words of one Robert Frost. “If it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate, that for destruction ice, is also great, and would suffice.” Where you going QB?

Robert Frost was also apparently good friends with Yao Ming.

#2. Robert Downey Jr.

2011 was the year I started this anime blog, or as I refer to it, the abomination of various unicorns. The anime euphoria, as I refer to it, has settled down since this blog’s supposed heyday. But not before several embarrassments were had. If there’s one lesson to be learned, it is to heed the words of yet another Robert: “You never go full weeaboo.”

#1. I seriously hope we don’t do this

STORY TIME

There are two people who I would consider partners in crime when it comes to watching cartoons that have no business being watched. One of whom is a dirty asian who won’t watch anything unless it pushes all the right buttons in his inner chiggerboo. The other is a casual who will dabble into anything as long as it has a good story and a non-gay lead. But one thing we all had in common was our contempt for the Japanese, thanks in-part to our non-southern Chinese lineage but mostly because we’ve seen enough shit from Japan that there’s a general distrust towards the glorious Nihons. Despite this fact, we still found time to yell at each others’ shit taste.

The three of us talked briefly back in January when the Winter season was just about to start. We rolled out the charts, grimaced at the amount of underage lolis that stood before us, made our season predictions, etc, etc. I don’t remember much from that conversation, but I do recall saying Fractale was going to be good (shows what I know). The semester began and we went our separate ways back to college and what not.

Fast forward to summer. Having returned home after almost six months of being away gave us a chance to catch up. A lot had happened, as I’m sure anyone who keeps up with the news will recall. As far as anime goes, Madoka was the talk of the season, but not for these guys. Neither was Ano Hana, Stein’s Gate, Tiger & Bunny, etc. It quickly became apparent that all the supposed “popular” shows were too mainstream for these elitists and self-proclaimed hipsters. Surely, I thought, there must have been at least ONE show that the three of us ended up watching. Well there was. It ended up being the show we unanimously agreed was going to be the worst of the season. That show was Freezing.

Apparently, unanimous agreement that something is going to be the season’s worst is secret code for “watch that shit.” Because that’s exactly what happened. Having been trolled by the devil into starting my own anime blog, I of course watched a little bit of everything with the intention of staying relevant. The casual and chiggerboo, I was surprised to learn however, had watched one and only one show since the last time we had met. This absolutely blew my mind.

I realized something that day. Our tastes may be different. Our preferences may be different. But beneath all the appearances and talk, we were all bound and driven by the same force. A grotesque and unyielding force that caused us to seek the filthiest of scum so that we may satiate our impetuous and masochistic desires. I realized that this was not by choice, but perhaps eons worth of evolutionary process culminating in an entire race of Mingtypes. The same force also compelled us to start our own podcast, until we realized the amount of cancer spread in doing so would far exceeded the acceptable limits imposed by all humanity.

At any rate, Constanza takes the cake for number one face of 2011.

Merry Christmas.

I simply sat a tripod in front of their highchairs, put a white screen behind them, and shot photos repeatedly for about 5 days straight 5 minutes at a time. I got a ton of shots but these were the best. Then I opened them in Photoshop and placed them all in one document. Pretty easy and a great keepsake. I see Christmas gifts in the near future.

Plus, I used each face of each twin as one cupcake topper at their 1st birthday party for a total of 24 cupcakes. When I accidentally printed out an extra copy, I used them as artwork for the party too.

Familiar Faces
This is a long term project I’ve been working on for quite a while now. I’m attempting to take close-up black and white head shots of everyone I know! They will all be photographed in a similar style, lit in a similar way and shot on medium format film that I am developing myself. The idea is to produce a book once the project is finished… whenever that will be!

Un-familiar Faces
As photographers we all see people in the street that we think has ‘a face that should be photographed’. But it’s not the easiest thing to just go up to strangers and ask to take their photo. That is the challenge I’ve set myself! Having spent a while on ‘Familiar Faces’ with it’s rigid set style I’m thinking this project will be photographically ‘looser’, and probably shot on a variety of different cameras, film and digital.

12Faces
Because ‘Un-familiar Faces’ will be a bit of a challenge as far as just approaching strangers, I have decided to set myself a little one day pre-project. And because Un-familiar Faces is a kind of sister project to Familiar Faces, 12Faces is a pre project to a sister project of a longterm project!!!

The idea for 12Faces is to go into my local town one Saturday and photograph 12 close-up portraits of strangers, develop the film that day and post them all, right here on my blog, before the end of the evening. Why 12? Well, I’ll be using the Holga lomography camera and that takes medium format film which gives you just 12 shots.

Zarology
Those of you who are familiar with my blog will have noticed I take quite a lot of photographs of one particular model. And that models name is….. Zara. One of the reasons for this is that I have been planning to put a book together for quite a while now. That book is called…. ‘Zarology’. This is another fairly long term project, though not as long as ‘Familiar Faces’ I hope, and is basically a study of Zara. I’ve been photographing her for a few years now and in a variety of styles and on a variety of formats, holgas, polaroids, digital, medium format, 35mm, vintage cameras to high end pro Nikons, you name it. I think it will make an interesting book/exhibition.

As well as all those I’m also working on a more commercial creative portrait project involving lots of local business, which I shall say more about in the next few weeks once it gets going properly.

So, lots to get my teeth in to!