ilovefuzz.com

Anything with cartilage go to a good place. Stuff like lobes you can just do yourself.

maz91379 wrote:So as i'm a pussy going to a pharmacy or somewhere else that does piercing with a gun for lobes would probably be fine and way cheaper?

Yeah. Lobes are easy, and not risky the way cartilage can potentially be if done shoddily.

Just get some cleaning solution - I think you can use rubbing alcohol too - and make sure you keep any piercings you get clean. And you can't take them out for a while after getting them without them insta-closing. A few weeks I think.

maz91379 wrote:So as i'm a pussy going to a pharmacy or somewhere else that does piercing with a gun for lobes would probably be fine and way cheaper?

If you are going to stretch, DO NOT get pierced with a gun. It is straight blunt force trauma, and is terrible for stretching.
Go to a reputable piercer and they'll pierce you properly and you'll start at like 14g instead of 20g.

Also, don't clean your piercings with alcohol. It will destroy both bad and good bacteria and will take longer to heal.
I use regular SoftSoap brand liquid soap.

foomanfat wrote:If you are going to stretch, DO NOT get pierced with a gun. It is straight blunt force trauma, and is terrible for stretching.
Go to a reputable piercer and they'll pierce you properly and you'll start at like 14g instead of 20g.

This is true, for expedience. Starting at 20g it will take a much longer time to stretch. I pierced my lobes myself, and it took a while just to go from 20g to 10g.

maz91379 wrote:
Also I kind of need a medium format camera (not a holga) for my photo class next semester any advice/tips (tlr vs. rangefinder) ? How much should i expect to spend/ any awesome cheap sleeper cameras?

It's probably going to be >$100 in the US, unless you get a good deal on a folder. You could probably find a Yaschica or Mamiya TLR of sorts fairly cheaply too. RB67's are fairly cheap for SLRs.

Just look around a bit, you could get lucky.

Prince Albert?

No guns. As mentioned the blunt trauma and smaller hole size just make trouble.

Just go to a reputable place, meet a few people...helps to start with something simple so you know if you want to go back to that place for future work.
I got a simple ear lobe done at a place not far from me...met some cool folks and have been back a handful of times since for various holes/tats.

maz91379 wrote:I can't seem to find anything under 300-500 on craigslist and ebay(right now this shit changes on a daily basis i know) it's retarded as you can pick up a rolleicord or rolleiflex for the same price or cheaper. What's the deal with people selling their shit for more than it's worth .

Shit man, I guess the consumer is partly to blame . People need to stop paying that much for stuff.

I haven't really looked for MF stuff in a while, my info seems to be wrong now. C330s are going for like a $100 more or some shit.

if you get your lobes pierced with a higher gauge needle, when you take your plugs out they'll be less likely to shrink down to a very small size. i've never had my cartilage pierced, but from what i've heard they take FOREVER to heal and they can be randomly bitchy. whatever piercing you decide to get, hit up an actual tattoo/piercing parlor for it. i know it seems weird to go to a parlor for a lobe piercing but it's a lot better than getting it done with a gun or doing it yourself.

the way stretching works is you wait a few months for your initial ear piercing to heal, then you start putting bigger jewelry in it. don't use a taper or whatever, they're actually pretty bad for your ears and cause tons of 'microtears.' i just went online and bought stainless steel flathead earrings when i was at 14g. if you wear heavy earrings on a semi-regular basis your lobes might already be stretched somewhat, which mine were. since the plugs i got were also pretty heavy, when i got 12g plugs they just slipped in. i pretty much dead stretched just like that for the most part. when there's resistance, you can wrap PTFE tape around your plugs ( a few wraps a week) until the next size fits in. just remember to only insert your plugs after taking a hot bath and use some sort of lubricant. not neosporin, which a lot of people seem to recommend for some reason.

i recommend buying all your plugs and shit online. every time i see them in stores they're charging an arm and a leg for shitty plugs when you can get really nice stone, wood, or metal ones online for like 5 dollars a pair.

When I did my lobes, I got pierced at 14g waited about six weeks and streched to 10g.
The size difference between 14g and 12g is super negligible.
Then I waited a few weeks and went to 8g.
So if you're only going to 10g or 8g, it shouldn't take long if you treat it well.

Also, when I was stretching, I always got streched at the shop and with tapers and my holes are super healthy nowadays.

i've bought plugs a few times through http://www.jswbodyjewelry.com/ which are hell of cheap, also ebay has cheap plugs, but i don't necessarily recommend them

i'm only at 2g right now, and i used tape when necessary from 8 on. tapers aren't good no matter whether you're just wearing them as jewelry (they can cause uneven stretching if you do that) or if you're just using them to stretch with (they make it easier to tear or get a blow out)

I buy stuff from http://www.bodyartforms.com/

maz91379 wrote:Also I kind of need a medium format camera...

Roll film or digital?

foomanfat wrote:

maz91379 wrote:So as i'm a pussy going to a pharmacy or somewhere else that does piercing with a gun for lobes would probably be fine and way cheaper?

If you are going to stretch, DO NOT get pierced with a gun. It is straight blunt force trauma, and is terrible for stretching.
Go to a reputable piercer and they'll pierce you properly and you'll start at like 14g instead of 20g.

Also, don't clean your piercings with alcohol. It will destroy both bad and good bacteria and will take longer to heal.
I use regular SoftSoap brand liquid soap.

Never, ever get a piercing by gun. A hollow needle that nips of a piece is WAY much better.

Also, I don't know about Your pain threshold, Your determination and stuff, but I'd like to give a free hint, out of a little experience:

when You're doing a piercing, cutting, branding, scarification or a tattoo or anything like that by Yourself the first time it'¨s more than likely that You meet the pain threshold. You can feel fatigue, if the adrenalin level drops down, and Your hand is very likely to get shaky. That's something (depending on the piercing You have planned and how You react to pain) You do not want. It will make getting through with it slower, and slower, and slower. And in cases it can lead to a piercing wound that heals fucking slow and badly. Yeah, I know, though I'm not wearing too many piercings, there's a little I haven't witnessed about all this stuff.

SO: have somebody who has done it before assist You, if You want to do it by Yourself. Or at least have somebody You trust to assist You with Your consent to his best ability if You can't finish it clean by Yourself. Have him/her assist You and concentrate on it even if he/she wasn't actually needed, so that You know You can at any moment ask him/her to just fucking push it through nice and clean. And it will all be good.

Best bang-for-buck IMO would be a used Mamiya 645 but they're still kinda pricey, even with the bottom falling out of film gear pricing in general. If you need a square negative format, a used Rollei or Mamiya TLR is hard to beat, if you don't need a lot of lens options.