Aww geez...I feel a quote coming on...

It's late Sunday morning. I have coffee and sunshine and puppies and Otis Redding. Normally this would make me a content and rather happy girl. Instead, I crave the instant gratification that is digital photography as I countdown to Monday 1700 hour, when the first set of prints taken on my new Diana F+ camera will be ready for pick-up.

A former novelty given away at gas stations & boardwalks in the '60s (and very unexpected 29th birthday present from my husband), the toy-like Diana is made almost entirely of plastic and is stupid-simple to use. The camera's noted unpredictability, though, has taken a recent and compelling hold over me. Her fruits are often those of mishap, failure and unfortunate accident, but their dreamy blurriness and cult-worthy artistic quality leave me intrigued.

Sadly, I lack the patience to wait for the actual results of my virgin attempt. So I hosted a little self-challenge to see if I could mimic the trademark Diana elements, sans-camera, using digital pics and somewhat modest editing software.

I give you " The Diana Initiative".... (yes, I watch Lost)

Ok.....

I'm not sure I actually enjoyed that exercise. Kind of took the fun out of it. Once again I find that the short cut ended up being the long way to the wrong place.

What it boils down to: The adventure of the shoot + the suspense of production = way cooler shitty photos.

"The gratification comes in the doing, not the results." - James Dean.

Shall we start by sending you away?

Seems silly. In my very first post I'm going to ask you to head right over to someone else's website. The logical blogger would be sharing the many reasons you should hang out right here where you are. My left brain is kinda shouting "Tell them to stay. Tell them we have a big comfy couch!"

But me and my right brain are just too impressed by this super bad A website we just found! And since I've decided to start taking more risks lately, I'm gonna have to ask you to go ahead and visit an online gallery called Charmingwall.


When I think about shopping for art, I imagine a kind of sensory experience; one that engages you and that is, well usually, three-dimensional.

But I bet you'll forget you're in 2-D once you start clicking all over this amazingness! Unless your monitor is really small. That sucks.

Ya know what makes up for it though? Each and every print is only $20.

http://www.charmingwall.com/