A piece of the cathedral next to the university where I had classes. No joke, our department was in a former female monastery.




I wanted to capture just how long my shadow was when I left university at 3:30 and the sun was already hovering near the horizon on one of those short winter days. I also wanted to show how high the snow was stacked. I'm not sure either comes across in the photo, but... you know.




I was actually disappointed by the quantity of icicles during winter. "Beware the icicles," they told me. "Another person died an icicle-related death today," they told me. "You are lucky if you have an overhang that you can stand under while you dig for your keys, because I don't and I always fear I will be struck down by an icicle while trying to get into my building."
...But there was really only one or two brief periods of icicle-age all winter. I had one hanging out above/in front of my window for a while that I kept meaning to photograph, but I dallied and the roof-cleaners came and knocked it down and that was that. This photo is from the second, less epic incidence of icicles, and it's at the university main campus.




I got a surprisingly small number of shots of the river all snowed over like this. It was an odd thing to see the first time, to look over and have this jagged white landscape where the river had been before.






I have a number of these longish-exposure, blurry bar shots coming up. So get ready for that shit.

Sometime around December I started playing the SLR-in-BW, Rollei-in-color game. For when I'm trying to get myself to do B&W, but don't want the heartache of missing that oh-so-necessary color shot. That and carrying around my Rollei at all times while usually leaving the Minolta at home (unless it was a specific photo outing) meant I'd get lots of rolls of random Rollei shots, spanning one or more months.










On this day I froze. Oh, Russia, the things you have taught me about the importance of having a pinpoint outfit, perfectly calibrated for not only the season, but the weather of the day, the part of the city, and the activity. I didn't realize just how flexibly you can dress in Oregon (though maybe I should've known, being that I had a friend there who wore basketball shorts and a hoodie, year round). Here, not wearing the proper clothes means having the lesson either frozen or steamed into your head.

I love photography.

It's deciding that my splitting headache isn't yet bad enough to force me into bed, so I think I'll try and fit in editing just a few more before it gets light out again.

It's feeling euphoric, going through a wonderfully spot-on batch of prints, marveling at the beautiful colors and getting lost in the times when I took them.

It's ducks.



Poor cold little things.

The nice thing about shooting with only a HOLGA, I found upon receiving my UK film back, is that there are about a third as many photos to look through. With each frame costing a little under $1, I'm not as trigger-happy as I would be with 35mm. However, given that, each shot is then used on something I really want to show, so the total amount of photos I have to get viewing-ready ends up being roughly the same.




The Gorse growing all over the Edinburgh hills is apparently an invasive species, but made for some colorful pictures.




Apparently the weather during my stay in the UK was freakishly fantastic. Sunshine every day.






Actually a triple exposure. Can you spot the Lolo?

Some leftover Moscow shots from my Rollei.



There's talk of changing the glowing red stars to double-headed eagles (symbol of Russia), but I quite like the stars. I'm very taken with Russia's embracing of the color red and those ominous Soviet-style stars.




This is from the train station on the way back to St. Petersburg. The shiny letters on the far wall read, roughly,* "Lenin was here, bitches!"


*Not roughly, it says:
11 Марта 1918 года
на этот вокзал
в связи с переездом
Советского Правительства
из Петрограда
в Москву
прибыл
Владимир Ильич
Ленин

Which I'd translate to:
On March 11th, 1918,
at this station,
in connection with the relocation
of the Soviet government
from St. Petersburg
to Moscow,
arrived
Vladimir Ilyich
LENIN

...bitches!!!

Another from Edinburgh.

From Edinburgh and from my Holga, it's Lolo lounging on the sumptuous mini-poops-covered grass. I love the luxurious strip on the right, teasing with what could have been had I not been using a Holga that'd light leaked all halfway to hell and back. Eff.