Generally I’m a perfectionist when it comes to photography. I need to have low noise, a perfect exposure, precise depth of field, extra sharp focus, balanced composition, and true color.

Sometimes though, it’s nice to switch it up.

These were still taken with my Olympus DSLR and macro lens but the photo I took was looking down at the viewfinder of my 1950s Kodak Duaflex II camera (Through the Viewfinder or TTV photography) that I bought on eBay for $1. There’s something to be said for a photo that’s imperfect in the right ways. There is extreme blurring and imperfect vignetting around the edges. The color is a little off. There are specs of who knows what in the middle of the photo and lots around the corners. Sometimes it’s tough to get the horizon line straight. Yet, with all of those things, a beautiful picture is still possible.

Art isn’t necessarily about perfection . It’s about a feeling or moment. And that can be a lot easier to catch with TTV photos. Sure I can take any perfect photo and muck it up in Photoshop. Add a border, give it some dust and texture, desaturate the colors, blur the edges. And at times I’ll do any of those things to a picture. Still, there is a certain sterility to those images. But there is something to be said for the unpredictability that can come from changing things up.

It can be tricky to get things just right on these pictures because I’m holding and trying to line up 2 cameras with a cardboard tube between them and attempting to compose the shot backwards (the viewfinder shows the image in the lens backwards). But I really like these so I’m sure I’ll get better every time I drag out the Kodak.

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#13: rusty wheel

#9: Found Rothko.

This photo’s colors, textures and composition reminded me of the work of one of my favorite painters, Mark Rothko. I’ve added a photo of a Rothko painting (on the right) to illustrate why I see similarities.

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