It's Spring and there's sawdust in the air....

That's right!
Sawdust!
I got the itch to build a camera yesterday so went out into the shop and dug through my scrap wood pile and found a few old boards and made a pinhole camera.
Here's  some initial gluing and clamping for the box.....not too exciting...

Here's another view with some more gluing and clamping going on...and now you can see what the pinhole box is for...a #23 Graphic roll film back.

 

Another view of the clamping and gluing business.... there's a lot of that going on to build a simple box....

Then there's some more gluing internal pieces for stability and light-fastness....I probably overbuild, but the day was nice and I was in a nice working groove with the table saw.

The box is shaping up nicely, so a coat of flat black paint on the insides to prevent glare and internal reflections...  The sun was bright and warm and made for quick drying outside...

Viola!  A new pinhole box for the roll film back!  Yippee!  I have a few pinhole boxes for 4 x 5 sheet film, but never built one for my roll film back....
This is going to be fun!

Stay tuned for photos!  I took the box loaded with some 100 speed black and white to Albuquerque today and shot the roll ( only 8 exposures) around the library on Juan Tabo.

I just developed them in caffenol, and the negs look pretty good so far....I'll post them as soon as they are dry and I can scan them....

Thanks for looking and indulging my sawdust craziness!

Busy times, fun times!

Had an amazing time talking to the alternative process photography class of Carol S. Dass at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs last week.
I talked about solargraphs, pinhole and my mini moon project and then did a caffenol demo. The students were fantastic!
The Heller guest house was my home away from home for a couple of days and it is a beautiful art space.
This is a pinhole photo of what I refer to as the Sun Room, although there was no sun on this day. But just look at those windows! Perfection!

Another view of the sun room at the Heller guest house I stayed at last week in Colorado Springs.
This is a 4x5 pinhole negative I developed during the caffenol demo for the photography class of Emma Powell at Colorado College. Thanks Heather Oelklaus for the invitation to talk about solargraphy, pinhole, mini moons and to demo caffenol. The students were great and I had a blast!

This is no excuse for not posting more often here...but I've been kind of busy.

World pinhole day is April 26th.

Neither Night nor Day...

Sometimes the photo negative conveys the ambiance better than the right light image....

illy coffee can pinhole
Arista 5 x7 photo paper souped in caffenol
abandoned house along route 66

Mild Mannered illy Coffee can...soon to be super hero pinhole camera

 

Yes, coffee and a camera all in one...delivered to my front door.

What a deal!

Drill a teeny little pinhole, load with photo paper or film and off we go into the wild blue yonder of making time stand still.

Kicking up dust on Route 66

It appears this old car is kicking up dust, but this is pinhole, so the car couldn't possibly kick up any dust.....or could it.

Paint can pinhole camera, old photo paper sloshed in caffenol.
I like using this funky paint can camera....since it doesn't have a tripod socket, I usually just place it on the bumper of my truck to keep it steady, pull the black tape away from the pinhole to make the xposure and let time on paper do its thing!

Instant Koi

A quick side trip to the Koi Pond with a paint can pinhole....

I used some old photo paper, guessed the exposure to be about 75 seconds and here you go!

Not quite instant karma, but close enough...
developed in caffenol just long enough to let the tones mellow.

A Winter Walk and Some Cool News!!

Holga pinhole with Kodak Ektar 100

I have found Ektar 100 to be very nice for pinhole. It's my current go-to color film for pinhole.
It shifts a little to blue, but considering this was a 10 second exposure, the blue is not too bad.
Plus, this was a "bluish" kind of day being it was overcast.
Give it a try if you haven't already.  It is really nice shot at box speed in non-pinhole cameras.

In the this is cool news department...
I've got a solo show coming up in April in Texas at Hill College where I'll also be doing a pinhole and caffenol workshop.
I'm also doing 2 caffenol and pinhole teaching/workshop gigs in Colorado Springs at colleges there.  Details on everything soon!

I'm so excited to be working with students and educators!