TOYCAM is FOR SALE!!!

All the entire TOYCAM Book Team Blake, Bill, Jose, Jason, Gregory, Ben, Leah, and myself are pleased to finally announce the publication of the long awaited book!!!!

We would all like to extend a heart felt thank you to the entire toy camera community who supported this project from the start almost 16 months ago to now. None of this could have been accomplished without all of your enthusiastic support.

I would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the entire book team for your dedication to this project. You have helped make this project much more than I ever envision 16 months ago when I proposed a book project on toycamera.com. I can't tell you what an honor it was to work with all of you!

Ok so here are the links to purchase your copy of the book:

Purchase the softcover version - CLICK HERE (SOFTCVR)
Purchase the hardcover version - CLICK HERE(HARDCVR)

For more information about the book and project checkout the WEB PAGE! The page will have more content soon so keep checking back in.

On another note, you may or may not have heard that the final copies of the book I received had an issue with the cover (see the image below and notice the stripe of dark blue around the illustrations that should not be there on the bottom book). We believe we have corrected the issue, but as the team has already spent quite a bit of money on proofs already we have decided to release the book without ordering another round of proofs. Ben is confident that there is no way this will happen with the new books. But if you do see this please let us know ASAP.



Finally if you purchase a copy please do send me your reviews and comments. You can post them here or send the to me at info@greenstphotography.com. The team plans to add a review page to the website so get your reviews in!

From the entire team, we hope you enjoy the book as much as we enjoyed putting it together!

TOYCAM - a slight delay

I just got the shipping notice from Blurb. My copy of the book is scheduled to be delivered on the 16th. Since we made changes from the proof copies. I wanted to spend my money to ensure that all is well with the book rather than have all of you order copies only to then tell you we found a major issue.

So I am pushing the official release date to the 17th. Keep in mind this is only if there are no major problems found with the printing. Judging by the proof copy I don't see any problems.

I am sorry for the delay, hopefully this is the last one I have to announce :)

Thank you all for your patience!

TOYCAM - Release Date is....

We have set the release date for Monday September 13th! There is a chance that the date could be sooner so check back in often.

The final edits have been sent to the book designer. We are also working on the webpage where we will have pics of the actual book, links to Blurb, and eventually a few words about how the book came to be and some lessons learned for the next group of volunteers. We are also hoping to get feedback from all of you and we plan on periodically posting it up there as well.

TOYCAM - The Proof Book is in hand!

Here are a few teaser images from the proof copy of the book! All in all Blurb has really improved the print quality over the last few years. The book looks great! We just have a few tweaks to make and the final round of edits (we did make a proof print a bit early to make sure the images would print correctly). I still think we are looking at release the book for sale by th end of the Month or the first week in September at the latest. Please link to this Blog and spread the word around!

More from Rachel's wedding...

Here are the last few images that I liked from My good friend Rachel's wedding. While these may not be art, I think these images show how just taking a Holga and a few rolls with you, you can capture some lovely moments from your every day life. I can't speak for other photographers but I love to always have a camera on me. You can really learn allot even if you are shooting the every day or aren't trying to create the perfect image. I find that I often learn some of the best lessons when photographing a situation like a wedding from the guest seats. It forces you to take the most typical of photography situations and try and make something a little more special. Finding small moments and framing them quickly is a skill that requires practice and patience. And of course I threw in a quick arms length self portrait of me and my hot date :)

Holga, Ilford Kodak Tri-X, Silver EFEX Pro

More from the Hair ball...

Here are some more images from the Hair Ball at Merriweather Post Pavilion in MD. I think these combined with the other two give a pretty good look at the environment and people. I guess they work pretty good as a group, but these 3 don't work as well as stand alone images as maybe the two from my last post does.

All images taken with a Holga
Iford HP5, Silver EFEX Pro

Rock and Roll Ain't noise Pollution!!

Well I haven't been good this summer about posting in a timely manner. I have hundreds of images back logged to work through. It seems I have been spending more time shooting and having less time to post process. I can't say I'm complaining, but being a person who likes to keep on top of my to-do list I can't say I am happy with the length of the list right now. I guess it's better than not having any images to work on :)

I have also been suffering through a massive heat wave here on the east coast. It has been about 3-4 weeks since the day time temps haven't been below 90. This wouldn't be a problem, and actually would have been great for getting a handle on my to-do list, but 2 weeks ago my AC went out and I have been waiting for a replacement. On the plus side I now live in a sauna and am sure I've sweated off quite a few pounds. I have to give a shout out to my girlfriend Kelly for allowing me to stay with her periodically so I can cool off. To bad that she lives a 3 hr commute away from my work :(

Anyway here are some images from the Hairball in MD from a few weeks back. I'm still working through a few more images. These were both taken with my Holga. I have also been playing with combining my typical more traditional approach to image editing, i.e. sticking to darkroom techniques like contrast control, dodging and burning, and using a more digital approach like toning and using Sliver EFEX Pro. So on these images I used a Silver EFEX Pro filter and a photoshop sepia filter. Let me know what you think.

Holga, Ilfrod HP5
Silver EFEX Pro

TOYCAM Update!

I hope that everyone is as excited as I am about the nearing of the publication of this book. I just sent out that 98.5% final version of the book to the team for their final edits and comments before we print the proof copy. I could have the proof copy in my hands as early as next week :)

A while back we released the design for the dust jacket of the book, it was met with mostly positive comments, but we did notice a few comments about the color orange. We were a bit divided on the team as well. It seem orange is one of those colors that people either love or hate. So we decided to change the color and ended up going with a blue that was inspired by the numerous shades of blue found on Diana's and all of her clones. We also reduced the size of the illustrations and added a few more. Other than that the cover is essentially just like what we showed you all a few months back.