Sunday, January 15, 2006

Pinhole--First one in a long time

I have had this idea for a while now to make a Pinhole camera. I made one a few hundred (read 16) years ago for a college photography class I was taking at the time. I have been inspired to make another since then by all you who post here. I started this before the holiday season, but about then we got a call that we had been chosen to adopt our little girl. Photography got put on the back burner. I decided to stick with the holiday theme and came up with this.


I got to eat the Danish cookies first which is always a good thing for me. The dang thing is around 10" across and three and a half inches thick and would not fit in my changing bag.


This is the shutter that I themed around one of my all time favorite holday beverages. The pinhole is in the O on the Coke. I made the hole using a stick pin and sanding the back. Since the cookie tin is actually steel, I used a refrigerator magnet as the shutter.


This is the film holder. I used cardboard to build up the side to an inch thick and it curves back to nothing in the middle. A piece of 120 negative the length of two negatives from my Ansco Viking fits in the holder. I filed a groove in the top of the lid so I would know which side is the top. It was about this time that I relaized the d*&n thing wouldn't fit in my changing bag. I headed to a dark spot in my house and dove into the middle of a sleeping bag. I had my head facing the foot of the bag and had my son throw a couple of blankets on top to make sure that everything was very dark. I opened up a roll of 120 film and started measuring lengths. I used a piece of wood cut to length that I could use by feel. it was about this time that I started swearing because the film was curled TIGHT. I had to fight to get it in the film holder. I have to confess that I said some things I should not have during this time. I finally got the film in after sweating all over it and getting prints on the film. A sleeping bag and two or three blankets get warm pretty quick.

This is the first attempt. Notice scratches and fingerprints?

This is the second image I took from the same spot. This is my backyard. Obviously I didn't get the lid put on in the straight up position, but I was going to adhere a spirit level on it but I figured that this level of technology, coupled with the fancy cardboard film holder and new shutter, would have Leica and some of the other big boys breathing down my neck. I don't want fame and fortune to ruin my hobby so I left it as-is. I will be much more particular next time.

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