Monday, September 9, 2024

One lousy square inch of film

Last week there was a post on the very sparse Pinhole Photography forum on Photrio by someone who had rigged a pinhole over a tiny 110 format cartridge. It was his first pinhole attempt and wanted exposure determination advice. There were several helpful, if nitpicking posts, but then we got to the inevitable: "I dare to warn, you will be dissapointed with that format." and that this opinion "comes from well founded experience. It all comes from science - the wavelengths of visible light, how pinholes interact with that light, and the role that diffraction plays." In other words, sharpness is what makes a good photograph. He never says anything about his opinion being shaped by Art.

I admit that I had already exposed half a roll in The Manic Expression Cube with it's measly one square inch negatives, and since this camera often gets placed in odd places pointed less than accurately, is often cropped to less than that. So it was the perfect opportunity to explore the hypothesis proposed by another commenter: "110 is definitely not a pinhole format." That commenter went on to say "Blowing it up a thousand times might create a one of a kind output. But I don’t see anything to be learnt about pinhole with 110." I've often told people to think of my pictures as four foot square prints so maybe he's on to something there.

These negatives at 24mm square are a bit bigger than 110's 13mm × 17mm, and even the most severely cropped aren't quite that small, but let's see if we can learn anything.

The pumpkin depicted with it's flower still attached in my last post is getting quite big.



The big one is getting quite orange.



The pumpkin vines have taken over not just the raised beds, but the entire garden.



We are awash in blossoms. If I had a deep fryer, I might try eating them.



They're everywhere.



In all states of opening.



The theme for the Fox Valley Photography Group this month is Wildlife. This bee was almost in the sunshine, but with ISO 100 film, the exposure was still a few seconds. 



In a little more direct sun.


 

We're starting to see more of these sprouting beneath the flowers.


Some are multicolored gourds.



Some have fins out the sides.




Some are all green and quite knobby.



Sticking the camera on a tripod under a plant with several very stubborn vines in the way results in some compositions that are very different than what I intended but maybe.....




Throw in some flare and overexposure for good measure.



The vines have reached all the way back onto the crab apple trees.




Pumpkins and gourds are intertwined and attached to everything, some of which still seems to be growing among them.



A color close up.



The tomatoes are just starting to ripen.



They have been producing as much as we can keep up with eating.



One lonely habanero glows underneath the vines.



Our new neighbor asked me to look out for an orange ball that his dog had lost which was quite a favorite. I found it poking out from under a large hosta. Looks like it's already been replaced.



How did a seventy-five-year-old man get in our garden?



It's not visually apparent, but this is down the garden path.



A very good year for hydrangeas.



Phlox, black-eyed-susans, and hydrangeas.




A wiegela blossom, just a smidge smaller than an inch, holding very still.




A cluster not holding particularly still at all in one those odd compositions.



Another random composition of a single rose on a bush that dominates the east end of the path.



A dahlia next to the driveway.



Elwood's mutes on a new island in the middle of the pond. What do you suppose that wiggling highlight behind the rocks is? This is about a minute long exposure.



A fruitless wild grape making a swirling climb up the white pines.



Papyri and petuniae between the shadows of the oaks.



The hydrangeas in the front are doing similarly well.



One of the mandevillas got knocked over in a storm and left blossoms on the driveway.



My corner of the couch with the new side table for the scanner, which also has several drawers and USB charging ports.



The charging case for my birthday present. Pretty hip, eh?



The Buddha's new corner in the evening sun with one of the home theater speakers, recently under control of the remote again when Andy and I spent two hours figuring it out after we got a new Apple TV and switched our internet provider to TDS last year.



He seems happy with his new perch.



Cathedral, a game about medieval urban society.




The blazing projection through my new larger spectacles. Since this post began considering negatives of 110 format, it's appropriate it ends with a smaller one, just 12mm square. Half of the last frame was the tape holding it to the reel so this is just one quadrant of the negative.  


Not a bad shot of the scar on my knee.

The Manic Expression Cube has a hand-drilled .17mm pinhole mounted on an adjustable rising front with 6mm of travel, 24mm from a 24mm x 24mm frame in the metric system but it's a cubic inch in Wisconsin. The film is Lomography 100, the eighth roll in an Arista.edu liquid quart C41 kit.




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