Sunday, July 21, 2013

on the train to Silverton

Holga converted to pinhole with Fuji Acros 100 developed in caffenol!
I love trains and rode the Durango/Silverton train a few weekends ago.
The Brakeman, pictured below was nice enough to let me take a few pinhole shots from the the very back platform for a short while.

The ride to Silverton takes about 3 hours, and then of course there's the ride back to Durango.
It's gorgeous!


Thursday, July 11, 2013

bats in my belfry....

I don't actually have a belfry, but I do have bats living out in the wood room behind the house.

This of course has absolutely nothing to do with pinhole, but as I was reading about bats this afternoon, it seems that they can squeeze into openings smaller than a dime depending upon the species.
Around these parts we have Mexican Freetails and since they are small little critters, they can probably live just about anywhere.

The moral of this story is, I probably won't be building any pinhole cameras with openings the size of dimes.




Today's pinhole was made with a Jasmin tea tin I purchased at the Talin International Market in Albuquerque.  It's a nice round cylinder that was just begging to be a pinhole camera, so after bringing it home and dumping the aromatic tea in another container, I spray painted the interior flat black with Krylon (my paint of choice) and then drilled a teeny .012" hole in the side.

A sheet of 4 x 5  Harman direct positive photo paper fits inside nicely!
The exposer was 2 minutes in bright Sun.  I developed the sheet in some home brew caffenol.

Hmmm....caffenol is pretty stinky....I wonder if it will make the bats leave if I left some out in the wood room.

I'll experiment later as it's nesting time for bats and I don't want them to abandon any little ones if there happen to be any out back.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

back from a long holiday on the road...

I took off for a few days and totally unplugged! No computer and no checking e-mails!  It was fabuloso!

I made a lot of pinhole photos, one of which I'll share now because I messed it up and just want to show my blunder and attempt to make it better.

This one was made with one of my homemade tin can pinhole cameras and I "thought" I had loaded photo paper in it so I made a 90 second exposure which is normal for this particular pinhole tin.

Much to my disappointment when I unloaded the camera in a dark bag, I discovered it was sheet film and NOT photo paper!!!
UGH!  Overexposed by 3 stops!  

I underdeveloped the sheet by 3 minutes (Kodak's recommendation) and this is what turned out.




A lake between Durango and Silverton, Colorado.

Monday, July 1, 2013

the "inside" story..

It's not often that I get told not to make a photo of a place, but this place was one of those places.
It's a tattoo shop in Las Vegas, New Mexico on Bridge Street.
And as the saying goes, "every picture tells a story" this one has its own "inside" story....

I was doing a caffenol workshop two doors down from this place and had just turned loose 25 students with cameras to go shoot around the plaza and around Bridge Street so they would have something to develop in caffenol for the workshop.

I had my coffee can pinhole camera loaded with Harman Direct Positive paper and had just set the camera on the sidewalk facing the tattoo shop.

The students were off wandering around the downtown plaza in Las Vegas so it's not like there was a herd of people standing out front oogling the shop.

Next thing I  know a young woman sits on the bench and ask what's going on.  I tell her I'm making a photo of the shop and she immediately tells me the owner doesn't allow it.

Really?! I think to myself.  It's in a public area, I'm on the sidewalk and not trespassing.

I ask her if she's going to sit there a while and she says, yes of course, she works there and that's her bench.  Cool!  Now I have a sitter!

The woman glances briefly at the coffee can, but I'm sure it didn't register that "that" was my camera.  I kept talking to her, and she was talking to the owner inside in between talking to me.  I could  barely hear his comments, but the conversation went back and forth and she told him the photos were for students and for a workshop, but he didn't seem to care who it was for.
I can't see him but I have a vision of Walter Matthau in "Grumpy Old Men".

Finally she told him if he wanted to tell anyone no, that he had to come out and tell them himself.
He never came out, so I guess he didn't truly mind....?

Long story short, after having this convoluted conversation for about 3 minutes, I put the tape on the coffee can and left.

The result is below, and as you can see, the nice lady fidgeted her way across the bench perfectly!



I need more fidgeting subjects to pose for me.

Illy coffee can pinhole, Harman Direct positive paper exposed for 3 interesting minutes and then marinated in caffenol for 4 minutes. Voila!

Thanks for your visits and patience.  I know I don't post in any sort of regular way, but I do appreciate your coming here.

Thanks Becky