Inspired by some conversations on the photo.net forums, I decided to try to hack together a handheld 4x5 large format camera using parts from various old Polaroid Land cameras from the 1960s. Polaroid long ago discontinued the film for these cameras, so they're available really cheap on eBay. To most people, they're pretty much worthless except as a collectors' item, but with a little fearless application of a Dremel tool, they should quickly find themselves back in useful service. The resulting camera will not be a beauty queen — the main ingredient will be glue — but it should result in something only slightly less portable than the Holga, but with much higher quality results, and for roughly the same total investment (about $20).

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Today I finally developed my first roll of film. It took much longer than I expected; based on what I'd read, I was expecting to spend about 30-45 minutes. Actually, I started around noon and finished at 6:30pm. Of course, about four of those hours were spent mixing the chemicals from their initial powder form, which only has to be done once every few months. Also, I took my time with every step, carefully washing every container and funnel between each use to avoid contamination, and rereading instructions repeatedly to avoid mistakes. I guess it's similar to the way my first engine swap took me three weeks to complete, but the second one was done in a weekend. I imagine the next roll of film I develop will go much faster.

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I realized today that my photography has been exhibiting a definite trend towards more experimentation — first long-exposure night photography, followed by the opposite, high-speed photography, then astrophotography, camera tossing, the Holga, and stitching panoramas. I'm about to start experimenting with infrared photography, and eventually I still really want to get a large format view camera.

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Although the medium format film I brought along for the Holga is ASA 400, I've been requesting that they inspect it by hand just to be sure it wouldn't be fogged by the X-ray machines. I've read people mention that they'd had film damaged despite the airlines' assurance that anything below ASA 800 is safe. If it were just one or two rolls, I'd have taken the risk, but this is 15 rolls — something like $35 worth of film, so I figured that just to be safe, I'd ask them to inspect it by hand.

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So hectic. I'm finishing up packing and getting ready to leave for the airport for Scotland. I head off around 2pm, and my flight leaves at 4:14pm.

We had a bit of a complication as far as the trip — as my parents were getting their things together a few days ago, they realized that my mom's and my sister's passports were expired. Ouch.

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Friday morning when I walked down the street to get breakfast, I took the Holga with me, this time loaded with a roll of color film. After only a few pictures, though, the shutter stopped working. It happened just as I was about to take a picture I thought would come out pretty cool, too. It was a yellow hard hat in a red pickup truck bed at a construction site.

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Yesterday morning I dropped off my first roll of medium format film for processing. I took the Holga with me when I walked down the street to the panadería for breakfast, and managed to fill a whole roll (which, in 6x6cm format, is only 12 photos, but still). It's so nice to have a fresh point of view for photography — things don't feel cliche or pointless anymore.

I actually think the biggest difference was just the fact that I could take it with me wherever I went — I never feel comfortable walking around with the 300D because it's so big and noticeable. Whenever I pull it out people say "Wow, that's a nice camera." And I know it's a compliment, but I'd much rather people didn't notice the camera at all. I don't want their attention to be on it; I want them to carry on as if it wasn't there.

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Camera Tossing may be the big fad nowadays, but Bryan has been doing it since before it was cool.

On the subject of camera tossing though, I discovered the other day that Ryan Gallagher, the guy who started the whole cameratoss thing on Flickr, posted one of my images on his CameraToss Blog. That's pretty cool. But man, those parallel lines in some of the other images posted are awesome. I still need to pick up some rope lights :)

After yesterday's outburst about my photographic desires, I realized that my upcoming trip to Scotland would be a perfect opportunity to play with new toys.

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• A Holga (a $15 toy camera that shoots medium format film and takes wonderfully imprecise pictures)
• A simple home darkroom (which will be especially useful once I start shooting medium format film and have to figure out how to get it processed)
• A large format view camera (don't tell me a 4x5" viewfinder isn't awesome)