Week 11 - Noblex Pro Sport (CotW)

It's nice to have friends with cool cameras. This (3) weeks' camera was the Noblex ProSport panoramic camera that my sister-in-law's very generous boyfriend loaned to me. After taking and entire roll of my fingers (because of the very wide angle lens), I figured out just how to hold the thing. It is a very heavy camera (I'm so used to plastic ones) and holding it with just 4 fingers (2 on top and 2 on bottom) seemed dangerous. (Don't worry Jerre, I had the strap around the wrist ALWAYS!) I did, however, get 2 rolls of film with absolutely NO fingers!

I still don't know why I shoot color film... Everything looks better in black and white. Of course, 9:30 isn't exactly the ideal time for good morning light either, so I guess I deserved that. And I still have to work on scanning cross-processed film, but those negs were pretty dark anyway.

I thought the Fredericksburg Battlefield would be a great place to really tryout the panoramas and I was not disappointed. However, I do need to go back again to get some shots with another camera (Holga) of a tree I absolutely fell in love with.



Week 12 - Lomography Supersampler

Week 6 - Golden Half (CotW)

I can't even begin to explain the elation I felt when I looked at this first roll of film from the Golden Half. It was amazing how long it took to take 48 images on a roll of film, when I can shoot hundreds of images on a digital camera without a thought. It's funny, how using a film camera makes me slow down and think about the image instead of just snapping away. Each frame is precious. From the first look at the negatives, this one really stood out. I am not happy about the reflections in the glass (I attempted to block them out), but this is definitely a window I will visit again real soon!



Week 7 Camera of the Week is the Holga WPC. The first roll is at the developer!

Week 5 - Pinhole Blender Mini 120 (CotW)

Well, week 5 of Camera of the Week got off to a bad start. After days and days of dark grey skies and snow, I finally took the Blender out for some fun. I also decided to shoot with a zone plate instead of the pinhole. Unfortunately, with the roll of film inside (ISO 400) and the aperture of f/64, the exposures were less than 1 second. That is quite difficult when your shutter is a piece of gaffer tape! There were light leaks on most of the roll caused by opening up the can and... OOPS ...finding a roll of film in there. The color on the roll wasn't very colorful, so I changed it to black and white... I definitely will take this out again in the spring!



This week's camera is the Golden Half Chelsea Maika edition. Stay tuned...

Week 2 - Agfa Clack (CotW)

So, week 2 (Jan 17-23) was spent with a camera I had not picked up (except to move out of the way) for almost 2 years! The Agfa Clack is a medium format camera that takes 6x9 cm negatives. Nice and BIG! Well, I finished the roll left in the camera (from 2 years ago) and one other roll. The rolls were color, but there is not much color in the world in the middle of January! And since I'm such a black and white junky, I had no problem turning the only picture worth sharing (out of 11, since 5 were taken 2 years ago)into a b&w beauty.


I think I am almost finished the roll in the nameless panoramic camera (the counter is broken!!). So, maybe I can get that to the lab this week!

Week 1 - P-Sharan (Camera of the Week)

The week of January 10-16 was the first week of my "Camera of the Week" challenge. Of course, it would happen that the P-Sharan was the first out of the bag (literally). That has been the camera that I've been using almost exclusively since I got her. Ah well, that was the chosen camera. Not too much exciting to talk about, except when I got that roll of film back, pressed it against the window of the van to see it better, my breath was taken away.... I am amazed EVERY time I unroll that film. Everything looks lovely through that pinhole...



I'm using the Agfa Clack this week... Stay tuned!

And So It Goes...

I am still working steadily on the book, "Impressions through a Pinhole". I've also installed BookSmart from Blurb, where I'll be publishing the book. I've started playing with the layout of the images and have found that many fit so well as a double page spread. I am thinking that I will single out my favorites or the strongest images on a spread of their own.

I am going to have these professionally scanned so I can make decent size prints of them (the negative is smaller than 35mm) and hopefully find a venue for a solo show once the book is done.

I have just recently gone through another roll from the P-Sharan and got 5 images out of the 16, so this has really gotten my excitement going again. I have nearly 25 images to choose from now. And now for another sneak preview...

I love my P-Sharan pinhole

I know, I've gone on about this camera before. But, this camera is just giving me dead on exposures every time (and I mostly use the helpful little suggestions printed on the back). And that ghostly quality of them, is just to die for. ;) But, I mentioned in an earlier post about participating in SoFoBoMo 2009 and I've been thinking about how I was going to accomplish this task. I think I've decided to dedicate the whole project to the pinhole images I make with the P-Sharan. The most obvious obstacle, and biggest, of course, is the time it will take between making the images and waiting for the processing. Maybe this will get me back down in the darkroom for home processing. At least, I won't be waiting 2-3 days... This will put a crunch on at the end of the month, I suspect. But, seriously, how could I shoot with anything else???

First roll from the Yunon...

I'm decently pleased with my new Yunon YN500 since every image came out perfectly exposed. I shot a 100 speed Fuji B&W film (the name escapes me and I'm not running down in the basement darkroom to find out, it's cold down there!). The only issue is that occasionally it only partially wound the film. It happened 3 times on the roll and seemed to occur randomly. So, I had a look. Well, since it is completely manual, it has this nice little button under the right-ish side of the camera to be used while only rewinding the exposed roll. It is a perfect place for someone's thumb while using the camera because it is aligned with the shutter button. So, apparently, I was occasionally pushing the button while advancing the film which, of course, caused the film to only partially wind and I got lots of junk. No happy accidents. Unfortunately, it also caused a partial double exposure of my favorite image on the roll, which I thought would have been better with out it. Luckily I could do a little dodge & burn in photoshop to lessen the effect, but you can still see a little of the ghost frame. The good thing about this??? I've got a sure way to do double exposures on this thing. So, I suppose I did get a happy accident, even if it was a discovery and not an image. Boy, did I ramble....

Sifting and Sorting

I'm still going through the negs from last weeks trip to the Fredericksburg Battlefied Cemetery. Seems the P-Sharan was the winner of the day with quite a few images I'm pleased with. The P-Sharan SQ-35 has 4 different photographic "styles" (regular pinhole, "soft focus", regular pinhole w/ vignette, "soft focus" w/ vignette). I was playing around with all of them that day and I'm liking the regular pinhole w/ vignette. I've noticed that the "soft focus" leaves a little ray of circles (like the pattern of the soft focus pinhole) and I'm not too fond of that. Besides, handholding the camera gives everything a soft focus, right?

I've Found It

I've been trying to find a photographic project for myself. And it seems that I've been going about it in all the wrong way. You see, I've been thinking subject, subject, subject. Well, I've found my project and it turns out, I should have been looking for feeling, feeling, feeling. So typical of me.

My inspiration...

New Holga WPC....

I just scanned the first roll of film from my Holga WPC. Very cool. My only concern is the terrible vignetting on only one side. It is almost as if the pinhole isn't centered. Don't get me wrong, I love a good vignette. I just don't want to feel as if I'm looking through a very small hole. Even though, essentially, that's what is happening. Anyway, I need to check that out after my next roll of film, because it's all loaded and ready to shoot color this time.

Anyway, about *this* roll of film... It was Fomapan 200 BW (I think). The exposures for the roll were 6-10 seconds each. And if you know me, I never read instruction manuals for anything. But, I decided to read this one because I knew there was some kind issue with skipping frame numbers to account for the extra long negative (6cm x 12 cm). Well, I set the counter for the wrong size anyway, even after reading instructions! So, the first few pictures were blended together. Not only did they make an even LONGER negative, but the images were taken along the river and included the upper & lower parts of the river. It turned out really nice, I think.

Negative Space

The Center for Fine Art Photography has a Call for Entry for an upcoming show with the theme Negative Space. I will be entering 3 pieces, including Two Poles, Colonial Beach Pier After Ernesto, and my hope for glory, Bridge with Train taken with my Pinhole Blender...

11 more days!

Well, the next 11 days will be spent cutting acrylic (husband is doing that!) and framing, framing, framing. Also, I hope to have a couple of collages (rose petals and daylily stems and lots of black) to show as well. Funny, how the "fun" goes out of art when you HAVE TO GET IT DONE!!! Ah, well. This is my only "hu-rah" this year. Husband is quiting job, starting a business, and well, we'll be basically income-less (except for that nice home equity loan to live off of) for the next year or so. Ah, to live like a starving artist... :) I'm still shooting and LOVIN' CS3 (once it finally installed correctly!).