A Salty Dog

As I was about to recycle an empty box of kosher salt, I thought, "Hmmm... Nikon, Canon, Fujinon, Chinon, Crackon... Morton sounds like the name of a camera."

Also, Sodium Chloride was a prime ingredient in William Henry Fox Talbot's original photographic process. A sheet of paper wetted with a weak solution of salt was brushed with Silver Nitrate to form the photosensitive Silver Chloride. Since he discovered that a weak solution of salt provided a more sensitive compound, he also fixed his earliest works in a concentrated solution of salt (soon replaced by Sodium Hyposulfite). The method survives with salted paper prints as a popular alternative process.

This is the first compact series camera to make the shutters into the entire front and back of the camera, which makes it easier to use the designs on the packages I make cameras out of.

And there's the song by Procol Harem.

Otherwise, it's a Compact 30mm with a 90° angle of view. The pinholes are burgled off of one of the solargraph stereo pairs from last winter.

Since I cook a lot, kosher salt is omnipresent for me. 

Yule supplies make shiny subjects.

My view from the couch this week. I misplaced my dust brush.

The spooky lifestyle applied to media traditionally more merry.

Weren't these in another room the other day?

I arrived early for an event at Photo Opp, so I walked down to City Park specifically to photograph the dancers in the fountain dusted with snow. Happily for my color film, they've gotten dressed up a little.

The event at Photo Opp was a visit by the photography classes of St. Mary's High School in Neenah. My contemporary Mark Ferrell and I got to do kind of a witness-to-history lecture on film photography, the tour and demo in the dark room, and guide them through the use of a studio set-up. They had heard of the "red room." It was very enlightening interacting with people who have had a camera in their hand almost all their lives. At one point, I picked up an Argus 75 and said that it was my family's camera in my childhood. "What do you mean - you all shared the same camera?" None of them had ever seen a negative. They had never heard of pinhole photography. One surprise for me when looking at the cameras they were using for the class was that inexpensive digital SLRs come with zoom lenses that only stop down to f5.6! (n.b. Most interchangeable lenses stop down to f16 or 22. This camera is f120, about as fast as my cameras get.)

Even in gloomy early January, the window in the bathroom makes interesting subjects in the textures of the towels and tiles,

Touches of red brighten the composition.

The bright yellow handle led me to reprise the electric snow shovel demonstration. Iron Man was playing when I thought of it, but Rock and Roll High School was on by the time I had to strike a pose.

Down the garden path. It's hard for me to get inspired by the dreary monochrome outside with color film. I'm not sure how successfully I responded to the challenge.

A few shades of brown to play with.

Morton has two hand-drilled .25mm pinholes, on the axis and 11mm above it, 30mm from a 6x6cm frame. The film was Kodak Gold 200 developed in a Cinestill quart powder kit.

My local universe in 12 color photographs

The Universe in 100 Colors, by Tyler Thrasher and Terry Mudge, was reviewed in Scientific American last fall. The book consists of 100 photographs and essays about the ways color is made, perceived and responded to. I ordered it right away. Trying to find an independent bookstore, I coincidentally got it from Stemcell Science Shop, which happens to be the gift shop of the Discovery Lab museum where Terry Mudge is the Science Director.

It inspired me to load up some Kodak Gold 200. Paterson the Pinhole Camera hadn't experienced any of these spectral phenomena and seemed like the laboratory-oriented camera this job called for.

Uh-oh! Another liberal elitist influenced by a book from scientists just fooling around outside their field. Don't you just love being referred to as educated elites by the national media?

The gourds we planted last year by throwing their ancestors in the compost.

Plants and candy under the lamp by the living room windows.

A recent arrangement on Sarah's desk.

My view from the couch in the Sunroom.

Using refraction and reflection by shaped glass to achieve a very wide angle with a relatively long pinhole camera.

A Bluetooth solution for our 2012 Mustang in the bright colors popular with technology vendors. Our '99 doesn't even have an audio input, so the only way to connect a phone is by FM radio or cassette.

A drying rose that somehow trembled a bit during an hour-long exposure at 1:1 macro.

Another life-size close-up of decorative cookware in the kitchen.

I've occasionally mentioned our fandom of Oaks Chocolate including making a camera out of their packaging.

They're not the only chocolatier in Oshkosh. In 1942, a couple established Hughes Chocolate in the basement of their home on a quiet residential street. Their grandson still operates there, and from just before Halloween until after Easter, it's not uncommon to see a line to the tiny retail counter at the bottom of the stairs going all the way down the driveway. We'd never been there until we tried some Fox River Brewing Company Hughes Chocolate Stout at lunch when Andy and Kristin were here and decided it was time to stop by. The four of us barely fit. I have plans for these boxes after we finish the chocolates. I've seen other Ho-Made products in Oshkosh, but this is the only one that's Home Maid.

Some candy from Santa joins the last few M&Ms sitting atop the latest book I've been reading. What could that lead to?

Paterson has two hand-drilled .30mm pinholes, on the axis and 13mm above it, 6cm from a 6x6cm frame. The Kodak Gold 200 was developed in a Cinestill quart powder C41 kit.

Absent without pinhole

I've published at least one post a month for almost ten years. December's almost over so in order to preserve that streak, here's a short digest instead of a more unified story.

One of the things I've been occupied with lately is returning to playing with large format. In order to offer an Advanced Pinhole Photography workshop, I have been building a few more 4x5 Pinhole Lab Cameras, which need to be tested. There's also a box of Arista.edu 400 film that has been sitting around the darkroom for a few years, so the first new camera got a six-exposure test with that.

Arista.edu films, which are relabeled Foma stocks, are famous for being inexpensive but also for their atrocious reciprocity characteristics: one extra stop at 1-10 seconds, 2.5 stops from 10-100 seconds and 3 stops over 100 seconds. As I've been complaining about for the last few months, it's been awfully gloomy, wet and cold lately. It's a little challenging, but I can stay warm and dry inside and leave the shutter open for a few hours if necessary. What I think I've discovered is that after about half an hour, Arista.edu 400 just gives up and any additional exposure doesn't do much. Most of them were severely underexposed. This one done at the 70° 90mm position of the film plane got enough light right next to the windows.

Most of the reason for the test was to see if the whole negative was illuminated at the 120° 36mm position of the film plane. Looks like that worked out.

I've made bespoke cameras for Sarah's blog occasionally. She found a recipe for substituting Count Chocula cereal in Rice Crispy Treats and thought it might be interesting to document her crew preparing it with a special pinhole camera. The pinhole is behind his piercing gaze.

On the back, he is, of course, identified as a Counter.

To get everything to match with limited materials, it was necessary to be only 30mm deep for a 90° angle of view.

The treats were delicious but the pictures of making them will have to wait for Sarah's post. I got one frame to play with when we were done.

The theme for the Fox Valley Photography Group this month was Whatever You Happen To Be Doing This Month. I submitted that photograph. The discussion involved how little so-called wide-angle distortion this extremely wide-angle photograph exhibits and how incredibly close the camera had to be to fill the frame. What struck me was that the foreground squash appears larger than the rear orange pumpkin. It really demonstrates how the perception of depth is affected by the angle of view.

Another perception when working on Sarah's project was what a nice a little camera the Populist is and how easy it is to build. You should make one and use it on the 25th occurrence (The Silver occurrence!?) of Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day this spring.

Neville has been busy documenting excuses why I haven't been doing more pinhole photography, and Paterson the Pinhole Camera has been loaded with Kodak Gold 200 which can almost compete with Arista.edu on its reciprocity characteristics. It can be done but it's tricky to leave a camera around for an hours-long exposure with the Solstice-related holidays happening around you.

A happy and pinholy Yuletide to everyone!

Madtown Monday

During PhotoMidwest's Fall Festival in Madison, two of my photographs were in separate shows with different closing dates. Ralph Russo, who made arrangements for both shows, graciously agreed to bring my picture from the first show to the pickup date for the second so I didn't have to drive over twice. I volunteered to help take down the show.

I've taken pictures along State Street, which runs from the Capitol to the University, several times, but in grab-as-you-can 35mm mode, with others along with me. This would be a good opportunity to just look for photographs. The EyePA 30 was still on the kitchen table. Another roll of HP5 went into it.

It was an impressively dark overcast day with absolutely diffuse light from the sky. I've been complaining about that a lot lately, haven't I?

The Triangle Market was there the first time I was in Madison in 1967. 

State Street Brats is another institution I remember always being here. 

Ethnic restaurants used to be pretty rare elsewhere in Wisconsin. The Mediterranean Cafe, or maybe with a slightly different name, was a regular restaurant with fresh ingredients and reasonable portions. Once inside, I realized it was now another order-at-the-counter place with about four things on the menu. The falafel was good, but instead of a pita, it was in a tortilla I'm sure came from a grocery store. Nobody even looked up at the camera on the tripod on my table.

This lighting display in the Overture Center lobby had to be inspired by a beam from an alien ship. I chose to bring along the 90° EyePA 30 to take this picture.

The stairwell in the Overture Center

Just down the hall from the exhibit is a small seating area across from the Playhouse Theatre, subtly but dimly lit on a Monday morning. Unfortunately, I inadvertently opened both shutters for an over and under double exposure, but some folks enjoy this sort of thing.

After taking down the show, the cavernous freight elevator lobby was on my way out.

With Fox Valley colleague Mike Burman's motto, "Bad weather makes good photographs," echoing in my head, I dropped the pictures off in the car and went back out in the rain which had been added to the gloom. I didn't have to be as careful to stay out of pedestrians' way.

The Western District of Wisconsin Federal Courthouse.

Brutalism became very popular about the time of the Vietnam War protests and I first heard the style referred to as "riot renaissance."

The corner of the Madison Public Library sharpened by the wide-angle camera.

Looking down Fairchild Street from a block away, I didn't recognize this turret on the corner. I must have gone passed it walking down State hundreds of times.

A window display in what is the capital of the Dairy State after all.

The EyePA 30 has two .23mm hand-drilled pinholes, on the axis and 11mm above it, 30mm from a 6x6cm frame. The film is Ilford HP5 semistand developed in Rodinal 1:100. The Mod Podge on the camera survived several minute exposures in the rain.

Fall

When Fox Valley Photography Group leader Bobbi Hague announced this month's theme, she defined it as a broad interpretation of Fall, not just the classic leaf-peeping. It took me a while to get started addressing the theme directly, so the leaves were no longer prime peeping anyway. I loaded the Variable Cuboid with a roll of Portra 160 from a film experiment phase last year and started with the wide angle 80° 35mm front.

The apples on the crabs next to Millers Bay were still contributing to the autumn palette.

It was not all that late in the afternoon, but the November sun was already at the low angle photography textbooks speak about. Further down Millers Bay, this tree was classically past peak with a few brown leaves but was in the dappled shadows of trees behind the camera.

Next to Lake Winnebago, a few trees retained their leaves, part yellow, part still green and part bicolored making the transition.

I know these are crabapples next to the bibliothèque, but I can't help myself titling this "Liberry."

Dense clouds covered the sky for days, but there was a moment of partly cloudy one morning. I switched to the 53° 60mm front and went out into the similarly past peak garden. Two brightly colored oak leaves with a mysterious bunch of multicolored berries were behind the raised beds. They were right on the ground, which required lengthy wrestling with the remnants of the pumpkin vines to adjust the tripod. I never noticed the bright yellow plastic connector. 

Looking around during that minutes-long exposure, two still bright maple leaves were lying among the lungworts. More skillful tripodology, this time a few inches above the ground. As I closed the shutter, I finally noticed they were made of fabric with clear plastic stems. Someone's decorations took a bad hit from the wind.

There hasn't been a cabbage report this year since they have been beneath pumpkin leaves all summer. Stayed alive, but not going to make anything for me to eat.

The dangerous roses on the arbor have made copious hips. This is about 1:2 super-macro with the camera just about 30mm away. Those diffraction equations show optimal performance with a smaller pinhole for subjects extremely close up. We may be experiencing that here. Or the plant shifted a tiny bit in a slight breeze.

It was late morning when these were done. I usually notice the light on this lantern while we're having lunch, and the garage is in the way by the time we're done. The vines had been a spectacular classic autumn crimson in recent weeks.

Flowers are not classic Fall icons, but the Christmas Cactus has been showing off a bit early. 

After several more very gloomy days, I returned to a typical autumnal theme. All those vines produced these three orange pumpkins and all the little gourds. The exposure read 17 minutes when the shutter was opened, but when that was over, it said 41 minutes, so I just left it another hour until after dark. It was still extremely underexposed but recoverable. 

No respite from the gloom. The Christmas Cactus in the directional diffuse light on the lanai again caught my eye. Check out the interference pattern between the screens and the shingles on the neighbor's roof. I can see it in the negative, so it's not a Newton Ring from the scanner. 

The 35mm front on the Variable Cuboid has a .23mm pinhole. The 60mm front has a .30mm pinhole. Both are hand-drilled and mounted on a rising front with 11mm of travel. The Portra 160 was developed in an Arista.edu liquid quart C41 kit.