Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Lamphouse Photo Company is ALIIIIVEEEE!!!

Welp. We did it, y'all.
Lamphouse Photo Co. is indeed very much alive!
We drove that camper into the sunset and took a whole bunch of pictures with/in it. 


And it was glorious. Frantic, hectic, and a little crazy but glorious all the same.


*FYI our first official event was a couple months ago but we were so lskjflksjdf that we didn't get any pictures so these were all snapped at a different event a couple of weeks ago : )  


So pretty with the little waggy out in front *sigh*

If you'd like to see how it all turned out, I'm going to re-trace our steps from crap-tastic camper to vintage camper photobooth and darkroom.

But first, and I feel like I say this a lot these days, let me apologize for abandoning ye olde blog in favor of all this camper craziness. I'm sure the ten of you that still visit reguarly are wondering if we still work on the house or if we even have a house and I assure you we do and we will resume writing about it with some regularity soon-ish. For reals.

Okay then, if you're down with it, let's talk campers!

If you'll recall, here's what we started with last October:

A $500 vintage camper that a guy's brother was using as his temporary residence. Noice.

And here she is today:



Conan borrowed a sprayer from our neighbor and painted it a nice, cream color. We were originally going to go with black but...black trailer + Kansas = you do the math. Dust, hot, blech!  


On to the inside!

We started with the front end where people would eventually be having their pictures taken.


There was a little kitchen on one side and a non-working shower, propane fridge, and closet on the other side

You can see from that picture that we wasted no time gutting it. I didn't even let Conan take any good pictures before my mom and I got in there and started rippin' stuff up.

And rip we did.


Now that area is the part of the camper where you get your picture taken.
It looks like this:




Here's some sweet phone pano action of the whole camper, all shiny and empty.


On the flippity-dip side we have the 4x7 foot space where the darkroom was going to go.
Before it looked like this:


We tore out everything including that window unit and for a long time there was just a hole there covered in a trash bag.


We replaced that piece of trash bag with metal, my mom wired everything, Conan put shelves in, yada yada yada
darkroom!



My mom and dad built those nifty cabinets that cover the wheel wells and double as storage.
The little boxes on top are the way we transfer pictures back and forth without letting light in.

And in case you're wondering how we can stand to be in a trailer in August in Kansas after we yanked out that window unit? We got a nice, new air conditioner from an RV place and installed it.


It's funny. We've done a couple of events now with the mobile studio and darkroom and people are always really skeptical about their being a person in the back of a camper developing pictures. Someone even asked if it was for storage : )
The next day, I ordered that vintage darkroom sign off Etsy.

 The darkroom is...well...dark and very small.



So far, it's not been totally unbearable back there with the print dryer. One of those black cabinets has a little fan that pulls sweet, sweet AC air from the studio to the darkroom so...I've got that going for me.



If you want to see some of the pictures we've been taking and developing in our camper studio & darkroom you can swing by our facebook.

We're still decorating the inside and working out some of the kinks but all in all I'm going to go ahead and say this has been a success. Would I recommend that someone buy an old trailer and put a working photography studio and darkroom in it? As evidenced by the lack of activity on this blog, I would say "Not unless you want to have no life for about a year."

I guess that pretty much brings things up to date.
For your trouble, I'll leave you all with this picture of Shorty, sitting on Conan's shoulder during one of many LOOONG days in the trailer.


 Insert witty "you guys are cwazy!" caption here.

Thanks for reading guys and gals. Stay tuned for (hopefully) some house related stuffs (and occasional camper craziness) soon!

11 comments:

  1. That is AWESOME! Congratulations, you guys amaze me :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. How cool is that...to see your dreams come to life and now when you drive anywhere around town people will y'all!

    Please give us some home updates like REAL SOON! Since I found your blog I continue to scan over and over through your before and afters and just love it all.

    I live in Houston and for about 3 years now have been going to my local DAV thrift store - talk about a place full of vintage gems for super cheap huh?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! It is pretty cool : ) I'll try to post about the house soon. We haven't really done anything since we started this last October so I can't promise any great before and afters. We'll see, though. The projects certainly have piled up!

      Delete
  3. So glad to see this post. I keep checking on y'all even though I follow your twitter, just in case. Nice to see this venture of your working out so well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey! *waves frantically* Well, thanks for stickin' with us all this time! We really do appreciate it : )

      Delete
  4. Wow!!! Anyone nominated you guys for apartment therapy if any such thing yet? I don't know his any of that works but you guys are PROS!!!!! God bless!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yeah, we've been nominated several times, but you know, we've never made it close to winning.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Congrats on the new venture, and for making that trailer so awesome! You give us all hope.
    Just an FYI, I clicked the FB link and it's not working...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, thank you for the compliment and thanks for the heads up about the link as well! Fixed it, don't know what we would do without our blogger friends looking out for us : )

      Delete
  7. this is perfect for me too. how much money did you guys spend? i want a studio like that too :P

    ReplyDelete

Comments are the fuel that keeps this blog going. Leave one! Heck, leave two!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...