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By Jenya from Evaforeva
When I got my DSLR it was like a new beginning for me - beginning of discovering photography and a new way of expressing myself. But I never stopped loving the old polaroids and beautiful photographs that were shot by Diana and other vintage cameras. The outdated retro look just captivated me but the inability to edit the pictures afterwords was a big turn off. And then I found Through The Viewfinder (TTV) technique! How brilliant? You get the genuine old looking photograph in a digital format! You get to bake your cake and eat it too!
There is a lot of information about TTV on the internet and it is becoming more and more popular. If you want to try it you will need a digital SLR (most people recommend macro lens but I am using 18-55mm that came with the kit and it works just fine), an old twin-lens reflex camera (it doesn't even have to work as long as the viewfinder isn't broken), and a
contraption. I bought my
twin lens reflex from
Canemah and my father built a contraption for me and he really did an amazing job with it.
The hardest part is determining the length of your contraption and
Russ Morris has a great website that helped me a lot. Once you are done with that step - you are ready to start!
Now, shooting through the viewfinder can be challenging. You need to learn how to manipulate the whole structure (both cameras and contraption) in order to stage the shot you are looking to get.
After downloading my images to the computer I crop them in Photoshop. Sometimes I like to keep the black frame and sometimes I like how light and fresh the images look without it.
If you are interested to see more of my
TTV experiments feel free to stop by and say hi.
