Flikr!

I finally made time to create a flikr!

I've been experimenting with my Canon AE 1. It's a challenge. Focus. F/Stop. Shutter speed. Exposure. Flash? No flash? Enough light? Forgot to wind the film...Again! And seriously, what is aperture?? Learning.

But there is a certain romance in film. not knowing what the moment I captured is going to look like. Letting the film do mysterious things... looking through the 24 exposures and thinking, "That's it?" With digital, photos are plentiful. Photo after photo and the ability to correct mistakes right away. My humble 35mm camera doesn't show me my pictures right away, and only snaps 24 frames- but still. It is a little bit magic, and I'm not giving up on it.

The other thing is, nowadays you can get a cd with your film pictures on it! Even more magic, really. So it's the best of both worlds!

Hope you enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobielizabeth/

The bottom half

Youtube Debut!

I like to make myself busy and I like to learn. So this semester I took a Film Noir class. It was SO FUN. We read a lot of 1940's crime novels (Authors like Raymond Chandler, Horace McCoy, James M. Cain, Kenneth Fearing, and Dashiell Hammett) and watched their films. Considering I didn't even know what it was when my friend asked if I wanted to take the class with her, I learned a lot!

This is a genre that I have become totally intrigued with...
The fatalism, the femme fatale, the anti hero, the sucking of cigarettes like candy, the dark alleyways and dark deeds, the stranger in the shadows, and the stiletto-tongue dialogue dripping with ambiguity.
How can you not like it?

Our final project for the class was so open ended- so my classmate Oliva and I decided to make our own film noir.
If you have seven minutes to spare (and can make it through our amateur acting) you should watch it!
Disclaimer: Of course our film had to be a little scandalous...you've been warned ;)

Big Brother

Two nights ago I remembered how much I love my brother, Todd.
He is pretty awesome as far as big brothers go. He of course, would say something like, "You think too highly of me, Tobi. I'm not that great of a guy." Something to that extent. He is always denying his greatness...

Back to two nights ago. Thursday night at work while begging the time to move faster, I was crawling out of my skin. Anxious to get out of there- and anxious to get out on the town. I stood stiffly behind the counter, elbows propped on the counter top supporting my dead weight. I wanted to run through the automatic doors bursting into the cold night to party!! The whole time Mama Mia! songs sang loudly across the store at me. I saw myself singing and dancing in sync with Abba on the tropical beaches. 9:00 pm finally! came. I closed the store as quickly as humanly possible and trotted to my car. I wasn't quite sure what kind of shenanigans I was going to get into, but I couldn't wait.

Then I got home.

My brother was playing a computer game with his headphones on, my cousin was at work. I walked into my room and suddenly changed my mind. Instead of heels and lipstick I put on slippers and my comfiest long sleeve shirt. I walked into the living room and plopped onto the couch with a book. My brother took off his headphones and sat in the big chair next to me. A few minutes of occasional quite conversation went by while the talk radio I accidentally left on in my room drifted into the living room and put us both to sleep.
Not sure why...but just sitting with Todd falling asleep was the most peace I have had in a while. It made me realize how much he means to me, and how those kind of moments have been too few lately.

I am always running. Working hard, playing hard. But Todd is teaching me how to enjoy just sitting. Even though he doesn't know it.
And even though he would deny I could learn any lessons from him.

I always am.

(this is my handsome brother. Always a peaceful sleeper.) :)

Teaching Metaphors

This is called a voice thread. They are pretty cool if you ask me. However, I don't have a mic on my computer, so you have to deal with the text. So, I guess it's more like a "text thread?"
Anyway, this was for an assignment in one of my methods classes. But it was fun and I thought I would share it.
Hope you like it!

(Ps: All Polaroids taken by me. :) The first three were with very old film, and the last one was with new film. I didn't know the age of the film impacted the color of the photo so much! Weird, huh?)

Oh, summer...

These photos have been sitting in my camera for half a year.

Oops.

But, it was a fun road trip with great friends. And it makes me really miss the beach, mimosas, talking about God with random men in bars, thinking I was too good for sunscreen and getting owned by the sun, one-legged pigeons, getting lost, the best girls ever, and smoking too many cloves with them...

ROOTED, BUT STILL FLOATING

(This is a piece that I wrote last semester in my "Teaching writing" course. It is an assignment that allows students to write about something they are sure to have an opinion about, their names. The assignment was inspired by the first chapter in Sanda Cisneros' book, The House on Mango Street. Read it if you get a chance. It is a favorite. So, this is what I wrote about my name. And since I haven't written anything on this blog in a while, thought I would share it).

My name is Tobi. Tobi spelled with an “i.” No, it’s not short for anything. And yes, it is in fact my real name. Found in a baby book of names, but chosen to match the two-day-old unnamed baby girl my parents took turns coddling in their hospital room. Chosen because I looked like a Tobi and not the Amy they had planned on. Chosen because it was simple to say but maintained a depth in meaning. It meant something in Hebrew my parents live by: “God is good.” And chosen to compliment my middle name, Elizabeth.

Tobi Elizabeth; a perfect pairing. “Tobi” bounces, and flutters, and sometimes splashes. Not the average girl’s name and unappreciated by “spell-check.”. A little unpredictable, and not quite as simple as it sounds. It is crisp like green apples. And playful on the weekends. Given by parents who longed and loved and whispered encouragements to a bright-eyed girl facing a hard world. As Tobi I’m not always quite sure who I am, but I hold my own and go my own way with confidence.

My middle name is rooted in family, and it in turn keeps me rooted. Elizabeth was proudly passed on from my mother’s side. Generations of women have had “Elizabeth” tucked somewhere in their namesake. A tradition born in England, that sailed the cold Atlantic to Boston, that lived through the blood and tears of the Revolutionary war, that waltzed, jitter-bugged, jived and swung. Elizabeth is rich in history, seeped in tradition, passed on in hope. It is the rouge red lips and cigarettes of my Nana Betty. The deep brown eyes of my mother fading green but always sparkling. It warms like hot black tea on a cold damp morning. And romances like red wine.

I am a shared story; a new take. I am not the name of your uncle’s favorite dog, a country singing cowboy, Spiderman, or Kunta Kinte. I am Tobe, Tobi-one-kenobi, Toblerone, Tobi obi obi, Tobi the tiger, Tobi Bird, Tobilina, Tobster and Tobes. I am that girl who idealizes the past, the golden haze of old eras, vinyl records and pencil skirts, and black and white family photos fading. I am that girl who hopes hard for the present. And I am that girl who always floats towards future.