Photography Tip: Using Sunglasses as a Polaroid Lens

Today's prompt: "Share a blogging/photography tip or tutorial."

Quite a while ago, I read about a technique on the internet where you use sunglasses over your digital camera's lens instead of buying an expensive Polaroid lens to take better pictures. I've kept a pair of sunglasses around just for this reason, but I never actually got around to it, so today's prompt was the perfect day to finally do it.

Ideally, it would have been better to wait for a sunny, blue skies day, since the effect is mostly supposed to give you deeper, more dynamic looking skies. But I worked with what I had; a blustery, cloudy autumn day.

Here's What I Used
- Black Lens Sunglasses
- Brown Lens Sunglasses (a nicer pair that I just got for my birthday!)
- My Old Kodak Camera
- My Parent's New Nikon Camera

I'm using the two different qualities of cameras to show how the effect looks with different kinds of cameras. My Kodak is a grumpy old one that eats a LOT of battery and likes to suddenly drop off to sleep and not be able to be revived for a long time; so it can get annoying to use sometimes.

There's really not much to explain for this tip, it's pretty simple. You take the sunglasses and hold them against the camera's lens and take the picture. I find that it works best to hold it as close as possible to the lens to reduce glare from the sunglasses. You could also set the camera on a flat surface and place the glasses in front of it. It's less bothersome, but your options for pictures are limited as well.

These following pictures are taken with the Nikon, with the black sunglasses.

 

And these are with the blue sunglasses, still with the Nikon.

The glasses keep the sky from getting washed out, which I like. I would love to see how this effect would make a clear blue sky look.

 This one is with the Kodak and blue glasses.

And finally, this one's with the black lenses and Kodak camera.

I found that I liked the results of the blue sunglasses the best; while the black ones only added another layer of darkness, the other pair actually achieves the desired Polaroid effect. It was a little bothersome to have to hold the camera with one hand, and the sunglasses with the other (especially with numbing hands; my mood ring was completely black! And no, I don't believe it reads my mood, the ring simply registers the temperature of my hand.) But with pictures like the one below, I think it's worth it. I've wanted to go around and take some fall photography of small town architecture and autumn leaves before it's too late. The blue sunglasses really make the colors of the trees look nice, I'll have to remember to take them along with me.

Getting Rid of Time

Today's prompt: "Go without something (e.g. phone, twitter) for a day and tell us what it feels like"

It was hard to choose something to get rid of for a day. Everything I thought of wouldn’t have made a difference to me, or was vital to get my school work done. But now that I think of it, my glasses would have been entertaining to go without, at least, for other people it would be. I’m not really extremely addicted or reliant on anything. But finally I found something; my watch.

My watch is a part of me. Once I get a new one, it stays on my wrist until it dies or breaks (except for showers and swimming; stuff like that.) I never care if it doesn’t match my outfit, it’s just always there. The idea of giving it up isn’t completely new, though. I’ve noticed in the past that I run my life on a strict schedule, although it’s mostly subconscious. If I pay attention, I realize that the way I feel about what kind of things I can do is influenced by what hour it is. Often I’ve wondered if I could break this pattern by not having a watch on; but it never lasts.

Not having a watch on today made me feel a little helpless, ignorant, and reliant on others. Every time I had to call out “what time is it?” I felt like saying instead, since it’s Wednesday, “what day is it?” That “hump day” thing is really annoying to me, but my little sister has got it ingrained in my brain by now, so each time I asked someone for the time, I’d have an annoying voice in my head say “hump day!”

Keeping a watch on me was a way for me to be in control; to know when I needed to do things, especially when to get ready to go somewhere. So not having a watch makes me a little anxious; but there are so many other clocks in almost every room that it hardly matters if I have my watch or not. Going without my watch was, I admit, not a very drastic change in my way of life. Instead it was something that caused small, trivial inconveniences through the course of the day.

Going Through My Scrapbook

Today's prompt: "Dig out a childhood photo and share something you remember happening during that time the photo was taken."

I’ve decided to talk about one of my birthday parties that I remember pretty clearly, even though my scrapbook says that I was only five. Back when I was little, I loved dressing up. I can remember an even further back memory, of another birthday, where I got this little red, yellow, and blue suit case full of dress up clothes and that night I put on a fashion show for my family. The white dress that I’m wearing in these pictures was one of my favorites from this collection (as well as a purple ballerina outfit mixed with a silver hero’s cape.) It always was some type of frosty fairy’s dress in my mind, with its sparkles and white plastic snowflakes around the collar. It still amazes me that I loved wearing skirts and dresses so much back then, because I can barely stand to wear those things now; my favorite article of clothing nowadays is jeans.

This was one of the most memorable birthday parties I have had, mainly because as far as I can remember it was one of the last larger ones that I invited friends over for (or rather, my parents did!) As I got older, I began to like smaller parties that involved less fuss. All of my friends came, 3 or 4, not counting my brother. When I look at the pictures, I recognize all the different gifts that I got, but the only one I clearly remember actually opening was a little notebook covered in red silk with golden Chinese dragons and patterns embroidered on it; along with a matching pen with a red fluffy feather on the end. It’s interesting that that’s what I remember the most, from a five year old’s perspective, over all the other toys I got.

So that’s some of my memories from childhood. Sometimes, I feel as if putting these types of things into words doesn’t do the memories justice. They are a mixture of colors, feelings, and factual as well as some fictional details, as well as what I’ll call “The Good Ol’ Days” syndrome, where everything is gilded golden with time. My greatest desire would be to transfer them from the storehouses of my memory onto film, unaltered from the way I see them in my mind. Words can’t always do that; but I have found that it’s an interesting challenge to always be trying to make the words bend to my visions as closely as possible.

These pictures were scanned from my scrapbook, that's why there's borders and balloons all around them.

If I had a...

Today's prompt: "Complete the sentence: If I had a _________, I would __________"

If I had a punching bag, I would use it every day; every time math refuses to work out, when I get impatient with the endless pages still left to read, every time an assignment demands that I work late into the night. I’d hang it in the garage and turn up the Skillet music loud as I pound out my frustrations. Like Lana in Smallville, I’d become as skilled as an agent from Mission Impossible because I’m tired of being the one that needs to be rescued. My dad wouldn’t have to warn me against walking out alone at night, or worry about me being kidnapped while riding my bike because he would know that no one could ever possibly hurt me. All because I would have a punching bag hanging up in the garage, and I would use it every day. (Guess who had a hard day with school and is listening to Skillet’s new album while writing this?)

*Disclaimer; for those of you who might be worried about me after reading this: I'm fine. If it doesn't come through the writing clearly enough, I wrote this with a tone of sardonic humor.

Sentence

My Unimpressive Blogging Story

 Oops! I missed a couple of days, but I suppose it will happen; especially when one is traveling for the weekend as I have been. Another reason why I've procrastinated is because today's prompt isn't bringing too many ideas to me; but I'll give it a try!

Today's prompt: "Share your experience during your first few weeks/months in blogging"

 The reason this isn't inspiring me is because there isn't much to tell. I just got the idea to make my own blog to post my writing onto. There's actually only a very little amount of my writings that I feel are worthy of being published for "real;" the rest are fragments of stories or prompt writings (much like this) and even though they are short, I still wanted to share them somewhere. So I created my first blog to be able to do just that. I didn't really plan ahead, or research, or anything like that; I just went onto Blogger and created a simple blog template. I wasn't (and still am) not the best of bloggers in the way of networking and doing a lot of that stuff to get views and followers. I simply write; and post what I write for whoever might be interested in reading it. That's my story. That's my blogging experience.

Belle Communications

The Awaited Letter

Today's prompt: "Share a high school memory that you will never forget."

Since I’m still in high school, it’s hard to say what memories will be remembered forever (hopefully all of them, I don’t like the idea of forgetting things!) And although there are several moments that I will unfortunately never forget, mostly involving sports, I can think of one morning that I hope to remember forever because it was the day that I could call myself a “real” writer. I know this didn't happen in a school environment, but since I'm homeschooled, my whole life is school!

The morning is fresh and brand new, and Dad comes in with the mail. I’m in the kitchen when he hands me a letter; it’s from that magazine I had submitted my short story to. This was my first time of trying to get my work published in a real print magazine. It had already been six months, and as I marked them off on my calendar, and the time reached closer to the maximum they had given for waiting time, I tried my best to brace myself for the rejection. Now, I’m an optimist… most of the time, but I also believe that you’ve got to face the truth, just optimistically. So the last few weeks, when I would remember that it could be coming any day now, I would tell myself and my family “I can’t wait to get my rejection letter!” So here I am, in our kitchen, surrounded by white; white floors, white ceiling, white cabinet doors; with the window open letting in a breeze from outside, and I look at the thick envelope in my hands. I don’t open it right away, I wait, gathering courage and trying to keep the butterflies in my stomach from fluttering. Dad stands at our white electric stove top and goes through the rest of the mail. Mom’s sitting at the dining room table, waiting as well. Finally I open it, but ever so carefully, and despite my efforts, the butterflies still dance. One can’t help but hope, can’t they? My manuscript is inside, along with a brief letter. They thank me for my submission. Then I see the words “we regret...” You know instantly with those words that it’s a rejection letter. For a moment everything inside of me stops; my heart, my butterflies, my breathing. My spirit, it flutters to the ground like a dead leaf once the wind has stopped blowing. Mom asks me what it says, I smile weak “They didn’t publish it, I knew they wouldn’t.” I had been preparing myself for this, I knew it was coming. Then in another instant excitement surges through my body and wells up in my chest; I smile wide, giddy, and dance around the room in my stocking feet. My words laugh with happiness “I’ve got my first rejection letter! I’ve got my first rejection letter; now I’m a real writer!” Mom and Dad just look at me and smile; they already know that I’m crazy.

And so I was able to write that day;

Failed/rejected work: 1

Accepted/noticed work: 0

Times I’ve given up: 0

And I’ll keep on going, even if it’s 100 to none.