They "might" be reindeer

or they most likely  are NOT!

I don't have a pinhole photo of Santa, or any sort of merriment to share for the holiday, so I hope this little gesture of good tidings from long ago is met with a smile.

Have a wonderful day, no matter how you celebrate it. Stay warm, stay well and have peace in your heart.

Winter Solstice 2016

The shortest day, the longest night.


It just so happens that my driveway aligns with the Winter Solstice Sun.

This is not a pinhole shot, but instead, is an Instax (Fuji) instant camera photo of the setting Sun as seen down my driveway.

Winter Solstice

I like Winter.
That's something I never thought I would say out loud.
You see, I was raised in Texas, and before moving to the mountains of New Mexico 14 years ago, if the temperature got below 70F, I was looking for a sweater.  Those days are long gone.  I think 70F is hot now, and the mid 30's are downright balmy!

Now I relish the idea of stark cold, snow and sapphire blue skies.  It gets so quiet when it is cold and there is a blanket of snow on the ground that you can hear the Earth's pulse.
Today is the first day of Winter.
Solstice...Sun standing still. Like me.

This solargraph is from a year or two ago, made by putting a small pinhole camera on the side of the house for solstice week.

I'll have another one for this year ready in a few days.  In the mean time, stay warm and enjoy the quiet days of Winter.

Those streaks across the sky were left behind by the Suns path for the week.
This is the view from the south facing outside wall of my house.
The pinhole camera was a re-purposed Altoids mint tin loaded with photo paper.

Infrared Anyone?

Occasionally I have an idea that gets under my skin and it itches so bad that the only cure is to go out with a camera and see if it will work.

Such was the idea of using infrared film in a pinhole camera.

I had some old sheets of  4 x 5 Efke IR in my fridge that was just going to get worse as time passed, so I loaded them up, taped an R72 filter behind the pinhole in my 4 x 5 camera and let her rip.

IR film gives the landscape a familiar yet foreign look to it.  I think it worked out okay in this instance.
One of the cool things about using IR film is it really needs a lot of solar radiation to render a scene...so I can shoot at high noon instead of waking up with the chickens to go out and make photos!

Port Aransas, Beach

I've been going to this place since I was about 8 years old.
It's special.
I remember sleeping in a tent on the sand with my family and my mom cooking breakfast on an open fire in a cast iron skillet.
Yeah, it was great, gritty, windy, sand everywhere kind of wonderful.
That probably sounds uncomfortable, but as a kid you don't notice things like sand in your shoes, hair, everywhere like you do as an adult.

I still go here once or twice a year.
It feeds my soul and tans my toes!

Not much has changed along the shoreline over time, but the small town of Port A, as locals call it has grown quite a bit in the past umpteen years.

There's a CVS pharmacy on the island now!
An atrocity as far as I'm concerned, but progress is progress I guess.....I spend all my time walking, feeding the gulls, watching ships come in the channel, looking for shells and listening to the water.
It's therapy.  Nothing matters here. Nothing.

Take your shoes off, roll up your pants legs and enjoy!

Zero Image 2000   6 x6 pinhole
T-max 100

the Beach is best

Yes, the Beach. Since I live in the desert, it's always a treat to be able to walk the beach and see an endless expanse of water.

This one was made back in October with a Zero Image 6 x 6 pinhole camera and some old T-max 100.
If you look carefully, you can see the bleed through of the number 4 above the clouds in the sky.
(It's upside down if that helps)
Turns out Kodak had some bad batches of backing paper and this happened to be one of those rolls. I kind of like it.

Dishes

tin can pinhole with photo paper dunked in caffenol.

The radio telescope dishes at the Very Large Array west of Socorro, New Mexico are great subjects since the large dishes move quite slowly....

Deer Pinhole

'tis the season....
for good tidings, snow, sub freezing weather and the seasonal goodie aisle at the big box store everyone loves to hate.
Yep, Wally World!

I go there.  I don't like going, but sometimes I must...and sometimes I hit the jackpot because lately ol Wally has been selling pinhole cameras disguised as Hot chocolate containers.

Yeah!  This is my score form the other day.

The tin is large enough to comfortably use a 5 x 7 piece of photo paper ...which is nice because I won't need to trim paper to load it!
It's about 3-3/4 inches in diameter and that's nice too!
I already painted the inside black...it just needs a pinhole and some paper, so over the holidays I hope to try it out.
to be continued......

Calling Jesus

Sometimes you are driving around, minding your own business and then see something that deserves a closer look...This is a plastic Jesus statue someone left behind in an old phone station.

Zero Image 2000 with Kodak Ektar 100
I think Ektar 100 is just about the best color film you can use for pinhole.  The color shift is not too severe....

As you've probably guessed, this is from this past summer when things were green and flowers blooming..

Marfa, Texas