I should have used RAW to prevent iPhone from developing image on itself. It would be much better to use Dehancer, a free yet sophisticated tool for one-click processing digital images using precise film profiles.

Well, it turned out I didn’t write anything during the vacation. To be honest, I made a last-minute decision not to take a laptop or Bluetooth keyboard with me. Instead, I grabbed one more film camera 📸

They often call Treviso “a small Venice”. It’s a nice little town, with broad canals and beautiful architecture. It isn’t that popular among tourists and therefore less crowded. With little patches of parks and gardens scattered around the streets, it resembles the unity of humankind and nature.

Treviso, Italy

I remembered Venice for dense yet cozy houses, just a stone’s throw away from canals. We rented apartments on Fondamenta dei Ormesini, which is connected to Campo dei Ghetto Nuovo island.

Fondamenta dei Ormesini, Venice

We’ve celebrated my birthday in Pisa, a few days before returning to Moscow. I believe it will be great to remember that on the 29th birthday I have climbed The Leaning Tower of Pisa. What a beautiful view!

A view from The Leaning Tower of Pisa

It was hard to capture the Tower itself, but at least this photograph shows its incline.

The Cathedral of Pisa and it’s (more) famous Tower

As stereotypical Russians say, “Let me speak from my heart!” I did enjoy this vacation and I can’t express in words how thankful I am to my beloved wife for bringing it to life for me ❤️

Well, just like every other amateur film photographer I must have tried either Holga or Diana camera. The one I got my hands on is Holga 120 CFN, a medium format camera almost entirely made of plastic. With an “Optical Lens”.

All the photos are taken onto Lomography 400 Film. I used a 6×4.5 frame, but the camera can also produce square 6×6 pictures.

Daylight shots are best

Holga doesn’t have a rangefinder, instead, there are distance notches on the body of the optical lens. Damn, I do like the “optical lens” thing, it makes this camera feel so much more than it actually is 🤣

Thanks to the widest choice between ≈1/100 and Bulb shutter speeds, cloudy and evening photos display fewer details in shadows

The particular CFN version that I own has a built-in flash with 4 color filters: red, blue, yellow and... transparent. It comes in handy indoors and may be used to give your photos a lomo touch.

My father and me to the left; my best friend Stanislav to the right

All in all, this camera will make at least half of your photos blurry, over- and underexposed, add glares and all — but hey, don’t we all ❤️ lomography for this?

These images were taken on Kodak Ektar 100. Unfortunately, the weather conditions weren’t ideal for this type of film, but still it was a wonderful experience shooting such huge negatives. I’m looking forward to contact printing black and white roll that I’m currently shooting!

Finding an answer to the “How do I live a happier life” has become one of my life goals. It is a complex question because the subject and object of research is the same person. We are not static, and so we have to look for and repair things in ourselves as we go. Recently, I’ve fixed one thing that was bothering me all the time, and I would like to share my experience with you.

The idea of using a rubber band is to strap one around your wrist and slap yourself every time you need to avoid certain thoughts or feelings. Well, it sounds weird, but it does work. As I see it, the idea is to create a pain-triggered neural path which distracts you from whatever you want to get rid of. After a while, you will learn to perform the action without a rubber band, solely by the power of your thought.

For example, this method helped me to eliminate the negative emotions I felt about myself when I realized I did something wrong or didn’t do the right thing. Every time I had experienced the growing anger and willingness to yell at myself, I pulled away the band and quickly released it. Slap! Oh my, it really did hurt. But more importantly, I was getting distracted from the emotions and almost immediately acquiring the bird’s-eye view at the whole situation. With some time it actually helped me to understand that the frustration and disappointment were not mine, but rather projected and remembered from the past.

And speaking of now, I feel that I become more supportive and caring about myself. Isn’t it a wonderful and relieving?

I’ve heard this method is also used by people across the Internet to overcome stress, fear and other loosely controllable conditions. Although I wish you have no need in it ever, I hope it will be helpful if anything happens.