Oh phooey. One little dent and it all goes kasplooey!

[miniproject]

This photoblog will recommence when:

* I get a new digital camera

* My boyfriend fixes my camera

* My dad lends me his camera

* Or I learn how to use my (maybe crappy, but better than nothing) phone camera




HMPH.

Comments

[pixiewildflower]

I look forward to when you can do that. We've had issues with my hubby's camera...batteries die too soon...I use my phone camera, which is , as you say, better than nothing.

[miniproject]

Aw, sorry your camera is funky too. My last camera crapped out on me the same way, via short-life batteries. It had served me well though, and in memoriam I took it to bits and am still using the parts for minis. :)

This time I was on an outing to a park with a friend and must have dumped my bag a little roughly, making a very slight dent in the camera. Now it turns on, but says "system error" when I try to do anything, then proceeds to turn on again every time I turn it off, so I have to take the battery out to make it go to sleep.

Boo.

Boyfriend coming over now to look inside (he's a techie geek) and if that yields no joy, dad is willing to share his digital camera with me. He's pretty much a saint.

[antronet]

Meh, well I tend not to like sonys in general as they are usually a nightmare to take apart but then again its more often then not a laptop that sees my efforts rather than a camera. I was actually quite surprised at how easy it was to take yours apart even though I couldnt fix it. At least it's all clean from the inside now :-)

[pixiewildflower]

No, it's a Minolta. We have a battery store...may that would have the Duracell Pro cell.

[antronet]

@pixiewildflower It's not an Olympus is it? I've had a couple of Olympus cameras and they suck juice like industrial bilge pumps!

I've found its worth getting the slightly more expensive Duracell M3 or Energizer HighTech. They will definatly last longer and overall actually work out to be a lot more cost effective.

If you're able to, try to find Duracell ProCell. Not many places stock them, and those that do are mostly specialists, often in some form of the Audio industry.

[sharp2799]

Awwwwww. When's the next holiday coming up? They usually have better deals.

[miniproject]

If I go the new camera route, it'll be second hand from ebay. Which is er.... pot luck as to whether I get a good deal. Hopefully nothing stolen at least, but I am dubious about the "new without box or manuals" offers..

[ethicalcannibal]

Ooooh! That's so sad!

[miniproject]

Weep not, for I shall find a way! *brandishes sword*

;-)

[ethicalcannibal]

I like your chutzpah!

[nashira]

I don't know what you had before, but if you have to get a new one the canon powershot range has good macro mode and is cheap, even new.

[miniproject]

Good to know. Cheers!

[nashira]

I have a slightly older model (and it's not the top of the line) but this is a macro shot taken the other day http://www.flickr.com/photos/sacredspirit/5590264753/in/set-72157626306306487 the eyes on the snake are only a few milimetres big.

I do hop yours can be fixed though!

[miniproject]

That is such a cute little guy. :) You're right, it's a good macro shot and I added you as a flickr contact if you don't mind. I update more here than there though.

[nashira]

She's part of a swap, the first one I received. :D And that's fine, I stalk DW more than flickr unless I'm looking for particular inspiration. (Also, I love you stuff though I'm not sure I actually said as much before.)

[miniproject]

Thanks :) :) :)

Looking at your interests, we have vampires and tarot in common for starters. Another project I'm working on all the time is designing my own deck. Let me know if you ever want to exchange readings, k..?

[nashira]

Your own deck? Did you pick a theme or just whatever comes to mind for the card? I need to get back to practicing readings, I don't get much time to do that these days but when I'm back up to speed that could be fun.

[miniproject]

Sorry for the delayed answer, but I had to mull over that one. There isn't a theme, per se. It's a rider-waite "clone" with my own personal twist on particular cards if they appeal to me in a specific way. The Christian theme of the Rider Waite deck doesn't accord with my spiritual outlook, so I replace that with what does. For instance, my Hierophant is the self-proclaimed "spiritual entertainer" Alan Watts, because many in the 70's saw him as a "guru" and he talked about that archetype in a way that affected me powerfully and taught me how anything can be a teacher and a guide - even a book, a friend, or a dead poet like himself. Wisdom just echoes through time and can always show us the light. So here's my version of the usually pedantic Christian pope:



And here's the Sun as a feminine, rather than traditionally masculine universal force of wisdom, as in Sophia the goddess of wisdom that nourishes the whole universe with its endless giving and elucidating:



And the Moon, as the mad march hare... ;)



But I'm nowhere near finished with the deck yet. Most of the cards are in sketchy form. I spend a lot of time on it and feel like it's never ever gonna be finished.

But hmph. Someday. *shakes fist at the stars* I'll get there in the end.

In the meantime I read with the Robin Wood deck and any time you want to swap or get a reading, just let me know.

[nashira]

Those are very cool! :D I've never used a Rider-Waite deck so I didn't really realise it has christian themes. It seems a bit odd to me...

I have The Mythic Tarot as my main and I also have the Arthurian Tarot. They're both very beautiful though the Arthurian one seems darker/more serious than the mythic.

[miniproject]

Oooh - the mythic tarot was the first deck I purchased because I felt drawn to it. My very first deck was a "Swiss JJ1" but it was so *bleh* that I don't consider it really my own chosen first deck. It was just how I stumbled across tarot and became intrigued. The mythic tarot is really nice. Cool choice! I'll take a look at the Arthurian. Haven't heard of that one..

And I believe the mythic and probably Arthurian would be Rider-Waite "clones" too. If you've done some research into tarot origins, you probably know about how Pamela Colman Smith, apparently psychic, drew the cards at Arthur Waite's request sometime in the 19thC, reinterpreting the earlier Marseille and Eturia style decks that dated back to the 14th century. She's taken as the "canon" alongside the naughty Aleister Crowley, who produced his own deviant, and some say very superior version of the structure of tarot, also working with a talented female artist.

Compare and contrast the 8th/11th trumps of the two decks - Justice in Waite's case, and Adjustment in Crowley's. Strength in Waite's case and Lust in Crowley's. Crowley was of the idea that instead of a universe ruled by morality and integrity, the world was a mechanically moving series of actions and events that had no relation to our morality, if there is such a thing, and in essence the most powerful (and good) thing in this world is lust. So uh... it can be a bit of a weighty decision which deck to prefer over the other. I think Crowley's deck is too fricken complicated to be any fun anyway. The guy was a genius as well as a sociopath.

Anyway, if you compare "Crowley's deck" to Waite's, it becomes obvious who was Christian and who preferred the "do as thou wilt" philiosophy of life. Waite's Lovers trump is Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, being forced to make a choice by the angel Gaabriel to stay or go. Crowley's is a harmonious marriage of the opposites, much like the Temperance trump (again in Waite's deck featuring an angel, which is a Christian diety) and in Crowley's deck this is point-blank re-named "Art" and shows the harmonious mingling of diverse elements to form new compounds and substances. No angels. No judgement. In fact Crowley re-named the Judgment trump of Waite's deck "The Aeon" and drew on Egyptian gods to hint that a new age of freedom from such was on its way. The Rider-Waite deck shows the angel of judgment blowing a trumpet to call the dead souls up to heaven, for the day of their judgment. Very Christian! A lot of modern takes on that card re-name it something like "liberation" which I like a lot better, personally. Wrestling with this trump helped me root out some inherited complexes anyway... which is just part of being a Westerner. Meh. Our roots are Christian and the Rider-Waite deck is most definitely so. In that deck, the symbols on the wheel of fortune directly refer to Jesus Christ and what are the four beasts surrounding the dancer in the world? The four apostles. Brrr. The whole thing reeks of religion.

Robin Wood is a pagan and spent ten years on her deck, making it non-Christian. *pats it lovingly*

Sorry for the lecture! I love me some tarot.. :-P