Things in sunbeams, again.

I loaded Little Guinness with Fuji Acros 100 for the EAA Fly-in. I thought it's famous lack of reciprocity failure might result in reasonable exposure times inside the vendor hangars. Turns out one minute is as bad as five in a crowded aisle with lots of moving aviators.

The camera was in my pocket quite a bit for the summer and fall, usually while I was using another, medium format camera, and the film remained unexposed. 

Finally, I resorted to an old game, taking pictures of whatever fell in the path of the sunbeams in our house. I would swear I was just going to finish the roll and then after five or so exposures, it would again sit idle for weeks.

The unusual northern sunbeams, which are reflections off the neighbor's window, fall on the bouquet on the dining room table.

The sunbeams often fall in the middle of the carpet, so things need to be put there to take advantage of that. The bronze raven normally keeps watch from under the television.

The south facing window in the bathroom often projects sunbeams.

Makeup always comes in such nice packaging.

Bubble bath too.

The animalmorphic lens atop a jar of cotton.

Beauty tools.

Bag, boxes, and bottle. 

I've never thought to put the camera on the philodendron's shelf before. 

Except for the meteorite I got for my birthday, probably the oldest thing in the house - an ammonite fossil from the Cretaceous.

A sunbeam falls on the door to the sunroom casting the shadow of the chair's arm.

Just to the right, Mickey and Minnie get caught smoochin' again.

The bronze raven atop the small glass table.

A folded throw atop Sarah's footstool.

In their winter home upstairs, the pumpkin people take a break from reigning on the mantle.

Real pumpkins still under the kitchen table.

Me reading, while simultaneously being exposed with a medium format camera just to the left.

The red/cyan glasses I'm wearing in the blog profile picture, which I keep next to the couch in case NASA, ESA or René Vonk post something I need to look at.

The Apple TV remote in it's easy-to-find white non-slip rubber case.

The bottom of the sunroom door.

A birthday bouquet.

The metalwork under the kitchen table.

The last of the habeneros and tomatoes, also photographed in color about week earlier.

In order to complete the front portico restoration, I painted the storm door in the basement, illuminated by my hat mounted LED's to make it easier to see what I'm doing.

From the other direction. It took a long time and then the shutter accidentally remained open for another four hours. It must have gotten bumped at some point.

Little Guinness has a .17mm hand-drilled pinhole 24mm from a 24x36mm frame. The Acros 100 was semi-stand developed in Rodinal 1:100.

Photo class

I attended Michael Cooney's Art of Photography adult education class at the Fox Valley Technical College Oshkosh campus. My assignment was to model with one of my cameras for a lesson on portraiture. I wasn't needed until later but the plan called for a lesson on lighting for portraits and Michael said I could come early and listen in. 

This may look like class starts with the students kneeling before Michael and his acolytes, but it was actually a scene directed by Grace Lim for her Humans of Oshkosh project. The idea was for the class to be acting like paparazzi snapping Michael and his associates who have been helping him out. Kinda reminded me of a modern reinterpetation of the The Transfiguration. 

Grace mentioned that her student who interviewed me earlier in the fall still needed to give her a definition of pinhole photography. When he had followed up after the interview with this question, this is how I replied.

A beam of light which falls through a very small hole in an opaque barrier will illuminate a spot on a plane held behind it, or not, depending on the brightness of what is visible through the hole from that point. Pinhole Photography is the simultaneous recording of the value and color of all the possible overlapping points on the plane on which the beams of light fall.

Two sentences is probably too much for popular journalism. I reject refractionist definitions such as pinhole is photography without a lens. It's more fun to understand what's going on.

The class's lesson consisted of three young professional models posing in a variety of lighting situations. First were natural light situations near the large windows in the common room. As Michael was speaking to the class with another model, this one was sitting waiting to pose. I took the opportunity. I'm not sure she was aware of what I was doing.

Another one of the models waiting for the students to get to her. When she had taken a photography course, her instructor had briefly mentioned pinhole.

There were lots of tempting situations where one of the models held still for some time while the students surrounded her with their lenses. Exposures were only about thirty seconds. When I finally yielded to temptation, just about the time I opened the shutter, the students came up and started showing her the pictures they had just taken.

You can always depend on a building to hold still for a pinhole length exposure. Lots of light, lines, angles and rectangles to make a composition with. Michael inquired what I was taking a picture of.

A unique feature of Michael's classes is the attendance by his associates from the Oshkosh Photography Lunch Group, who interact with the students. Monochrome Monty Montgomery alternated between jumping up to catch an opportunity with the models and resting from the early morning activity.

Monty and Kathy Bechard try modeling.

When Michael first asked me to come for a portrait with one of my cameras, I thought he meant he wanted to take it with one of my cameras. After about four exchanges on Facebook Messenger about what doing that might involve and what camera and film to use, I realized he wanted the students to take pictures of me and the camera. I was the "black backdrop" lighting example. They all wanted me to put my hands on the camera. I even did a little mugging for them. One of them said they liked my eyebrows. In the two pictures I've seen (not by the students by the way), they concentrated on my face and my camera was out of focus. Ya gotta learn to stop that lens down.

There were lots of things during the studio session I would have liked to photograph. Exposures on the white backdrop with a few more lights were only about fifteen seconds with the Lomography 800 but I would have had to disrupt everything they were doing even for that. Not worth risking film trying to catch motionless moments and ending up with a mist of figures in front of the backdrop.

We made a major change in the living room wall I've photographed so often with a large new mirror above the mantle, replacing the grid of photos that have been there for 15 years and were starting to fade.

The Oshkosh Photography Lunch Group met the next Friday. I brought the camera. A group photo would have been appropriate to this post's theme, but it either would have been stiffly posed around lunch or I would have had to direct seven people, who are used to being the director, for at least ten minutes in order to get the portrait I really wanted.

Instead, inspired by architectural pro Phil Weston's show and tell about a recent assignment, I went across the road for all the reflecting windows in the new monochrome apartment block. They've built a berm between the building and busy Jackson Street. From the top you can get a higher view to make it easier to keep your verticals parallel with a wide angle camera that close to the building.

Ground floor entrances on the sunlit side. The unusual use of horizontal wooden slats to meet the code for exterior stair railings also casts some interesting shadows. 

All with the Little Mutant. .27mm pinholes on the axis and 13mm above it, 45mm from a 6x6cm frame. The Lomo 800 was the second roll developed in this Arista.edu liquid C-41 kit.

3600 Watt Pinhole Portraiture

Every time I go to a museum and look at portraits painted during almost any era, it seems the calm demeanor of subjects holding still while being drawn was something that would work great with pinhole. I even made a camera once specifically for portraiture, but only took a self-portrait with it. A current goal is to take more pictures of people and specifically posed portraits - not just grabbed candids. A few weeks ago I saw the exhibit Fashioned by Sargent at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and had a new fire lit under me.

At the events sponsored by Photo Opp, there is always some portraiture going on, both candid and formal studio. At the last Photo Opp open house (at which I had very slow film), I measured what the exposure would be with Lomography 800 with the two large soft light boxes they had set up. Thirty seconds. That sounds doable. Lomography just dropped the price of all of it's 120 films and I snapped up a bunch of the 800, which I was impressed with at the photo walk this fall and for the pre-pandemic Then and Now exhibit at the Oshkosh Public Museum.

With another open house of Photo Opp's building occuring, I thought I could take the opportunity and maybe provide a little entertainment for the attendees. I messaged Graham Watashka. He replied the studio lighting was now in the basement and was set up for someone's special project. Could I use strobes? He had two 1200 watt and two 600 watt devices, portable and battery powered. Hmmmm. I had heard of people using flash with pinhole but it was usually many flashes with tens of seconds between charges, or with the flash several inches from the subject. In the 80's with a lens, I once did several self-portraits with a flash held against either cheek. None of this sounded like an approach I wanted to take, but the idea was now stuck in my head. Would it work? I vaguely remembered there was a formula that yielded the distance the light needed to be from the subject. A few keystrokes later: The guide number of the flash divided by the f-stop equals the distance in feet for ISO 100 film. I didn't want a too wide angle view, but did want as fast a camera as possible. The 45mm, 67 degree wide, f160 Little Mutant fit the bill. The total guide number of Graham's lights is 360 divided by f160 equals 2.25 feet. ISO 100 to 400 is two stops so that doubles the distance to 4.5 feet (Inverse Square Law, ya know) with a little gravy thrown in for an extra stop for ISO 800. The math works!

A few issues remained. 

What I was interested in were the poses people held for long periods to be drawn by hand. Did I want instantaneous pictures? The shutter had to be opened and the flashes set off with a button on the charging box. That would take a few seconds so it would be sort of like a long exposure.

Another was that these were bare flash bulbs. I had always imagined doing this with a giant Vermeer window, maybe simulated by a couple umbrellas, not a tiny source like a flash. But I take pictures outside with the sun all the time. What's the difference?

The last was that I couldn't actually see how the lighting was going to look but isn't that kind of normal for pinhole? I could sort of previsualize what it would be like. Light travels in straight lines so there was some idea where shadows would fall. I eventually found out there were modeling lights, but just found them confusing with the room lights also on.

All this was intriguingly unknown and something I had never done but had always wanted to. Kind of a tall order for someone nearing three-quarters of a century. And without risking my life or spending a lot of money to find out.

Within ten minutes I messaged Graham back and said I'd like to try it.

The inspiration for this had always been Renaissance, Flemish and Tudor painters, but suddenly, with the direct flash, my thinking shifted to the turn of the 20th century, Picasso's Gertrude Stein and Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet coming to mind.

In the intervening few days, I decided the comfy lounge in the basement would be more interesting than a plain back drop. When we got the first strobe set up and I saw how quickly it recharged, it seemed it would be more flexible, easier and safer to move just one light stand. Three pops with one 1200 would equal the same as all four units and would only take about six seconds to recharge and fire three times. There were also two desk lamps on that I thought might add some hair lights.

Being the instigator of all this, it is only appropriate to have a direct reflection of the flash exactly in one of Graham's eyeballs.

Board member Morgan Kirchenwitz struggled for minutes to hold a pose she could maintain. I got the math right, but I forgot to move the flash this time and it was about 6 feet away and pointed directly at the wall. She was just at the edge of the coverage of the strobe, resulting in a bit of an underexposed negative. I had bragged that I could probably get a decent image out of almost any negative, and that was necessary for this one but it captures the painterly quality I was hoping for. (Sorry, Steiglitz, but not sorry.) 

Char Brandis worked in my department while she was a student. She's been to almost all the Photo Opp events with her Minolta SLR. I had already been thinking about how I was going to do this photograph.

Amy James is the Board President of Photo Opp but I didn't know that until after she had agreed to let me do her portrait with my experimental set up. She has painted portraits and reassured me she understood the worry of whether a sitter will like what you've done. With her knit scarf, patterned skirt, dark coat and shiny necklace, I couldn't help bring up Sargent. We speculated how he would have posed her. 

Bard Media partner Jake Viannes, whom I'd never met before. He didn't have a favorite portrait painter to imagine but he said he liked Edward Hopper. Perfect for the direct flash. He seemed comfortable with my suggestion that he pose as though he were a Spanish royal being painted by Valasquez.

Brandi Grahl repeats her Mona Lisa smile. I had been hoping I could get somebody curled up in this chair for my square format camera. 

Char and her husband Matt have often been to these events together. Another picture that I had imagined was them gazing into each others' eyes.

Another new aquaintance Jeff Braatz and I conversed for some time about being theater photographers, me 40 years ago in a small college and he currently with a high school. Eventually it came up what was going on downstairs with the pinhole camera.

Photographic scientist and UW-Oshkosh chemistry grad, Almon Benton, who went right for the Kodak apron which serendipitously matches his hat.

From even farther away than me, Alex Simpson of Silvergraphics in Ripon. You can tell by the business name he's into a lot of analog processes. He's done tintypes at these events. Just before this I listened to an extended conversation with Almon about direct reversal images using color photographic paper in the camera. He told me while counting the flashes he was thinking that he had a 4800 watt unit so we could use just one flash and maybe bounce it off something if I'd like to try that. Hmmm. 

In previous outings with Photo Opp, several double exposures occured while interacting with other people and forgetting to wind the film. They get displayed on my blog if they're instructive about composition, optics or exposure. I really don't like it when this happens. Photo Opp used a few of these in their blog and some other materials after I had told them to use anything they liked, and reluctantly agreed when they chose the inadvertant doubles. Brandi had asked what my objection was to using those pictures. It's mostly because it's a random occurence and despite promoting serendipity as a virtue of pinhole, it doesn't seem something I can claim authorship of. I really would rather have the two pictures I intended to take. Can you see where I'm going with this?

With every subject there was some discussion of the myriad uncertainties in my method that night, and the small but non-zero probability that it would lead to unusable negatives - or grotesque distortions. This conversation was usually repeated immediately after the exposure while trying to move camera and light stand to let them get up from their pose. I kept catching myself a few minutes later remembering to wind the film, a couple times just before making the next picture. Well, it turns out I did forget to wind the film for the first exposure. Sorry, John and Dave. To add insult, I advanced an extra frame with out exposing after doubling Dave on top of John, which explains only 11 pictures in this blog. I hate when that happens too.

It is a little extraordinary how closely merged the two figures are, seated on different sides of the room. Both sets of hands are visible but otherwise it's a combination of the two figures and their less exposed backgrounds which are surprising low contrast compared to the doubled figures. You can just see a bit of John's lighter collar inside Dave's darker shirt.

I'm very happy how this worked out, although still a little flummoxed about it. Now that I've made the leap to asking people to sit, I hope to be able to continue now that I have confidence it will work. These were about the most cooperative subjects one could ask for. Thank you all. The flash was interesting and will probably try this again. I just realized the other 1200 watt strobe could have been pointed at the ceiling and gotten some fill without having to move it every time. I also want to try using some continuous, big light sources as originally planned. The sun through the stained glass windows of Photo Opp on a bright day also seems an interesting source of light to reflect off of some people. Would being in that majestic space affect how people posed compared to the cozy lounge?

Ironically, this weekend Michael Cooney invited me to model with one of my cameras for his Art of Photography class for a lesson on studio lighting. That was a very weird experience with what seemed like 10,000 frames exposed in about 10 minutes while I mugged for their lenses.

The Little Mutant has a hand-drilled .27mm pinhole 45mm from a 6x6 frame. After developing nine rolls in my original C-41 kit, I mixed a fresh kit for this roll of film.

Bridge Tender's Houses and Streets Named Washington

In my travels in Oshkosh and beyond in the last year, I have photographed 6 of the 11 bridge tender's houses on the draw bridges and one lift bridge over the Fox River between Oshkosh and Green Bay. 

Life is short, Large Format Photography is long  ·  Pinhole Day at The Draw  ·  Student of Large Format Pinhole

On a nice autumn day, there was a meeting of the Fox Valley Photography Group in Kaukauna. I could pick up the two bridges in Menasha and since I was half way to Green Bay, go cruisin' in the Mustang up to the three near the mouth of the river. The weather forecast was just a bit iffy with rain predicted for later in the evening.

First was the Tayco Street Bridge over the lock channel, connecting Doty Island to the rest of the town. Built in 1929, one of its houses is also a tiny historical museum. The bridge collapsed in 1989 (I don't remember that) and took one of the four towers with it. Must have damaged the other one on the island because it looks quite a bit different than the ones on this side. The 45mm front was on the Variable Cuboid. One lesson was you can't park very close to a draw bridge. I'm usually on a bicycle. After parallel parking on a busy street two blocks away, forgetfully left my back pack in the car and wished I would have had a narrower angle camera when I got there. The pointy little roof gets obscured when you're this close and there was plenty of room to move the camera back, but it turns out the best camera is the one you have with you.

Up river, toward the lake before the lock and main channels divide, is the Washington Street Bridge with a traffic circle on the north side. Beyond which the nearest parking was in a metered space. Same mistake with the wide angle and it's alternatives left in the car.

The weather predictions turned out to be on the gloomier side of the percentages and it was heavily misting when I got to Green Bay for the Dousman Street Bridge. A handy plastic bag went over the camera. Free parking in the Neville Museum lot but had to walk all the way across the bridge to get near the bridge tender's house. Built in 1989 and named for Ray Nitschke, Packer linebacker, TV pitchman and local philanthropist. It seems to be a larger version of the historic structures in Menasha.

To get to the Walnut Street Bridge house, the nearest parking was a metered spot on Washington Street, busy at rush hour with both pedestrians and cars. The mist was getting a little wet now. These are pretty big bridges so the drawing part is significantly out on the bridge. Standing out there with a bag on a tripod in the rain with traffic going by for a two minute exposure was an odd experience.

At Mason Street I had the choice of a half-mile walk and by now a five-minute exposure with the wide angle, or try from the shore with the 200mm which would need a half-hour. I drove on to Kaukauna.

Back home I switched to the 35mm front to finish the roll. 

My mind drifting to a far-off land reading a dark academia novel.

This little kiosk probably contains rules and instructions for docking your boat there on the other side, but from this side there is at least six feet of water and rock. What do they expect you to read? Must be a stock part they just used in this one-sided application.

Bare trees and their shadows cast against buildings again. The old post office in the neoclassical cluster on Washington Avenue. Anybody else notice that's the third prominent street named after old George in this post?

The utilitarian addition on the back is the same stone, but not so neoclassical.

A few doors down, the accessible entrance behind the Washington Building on Washington Avenue with lots of lines and angles and not as many shadows as it seemed at the time.

A tree with a lumber baron's mansion behind it.

 

About the time Pabst began bragging about that blue ribbon, they couldn't ship bottled beer as far as the Fox Valley before it spoiled, but a barrel was massive enough to stay cold and get bottled locally. They constructed this building next to the railroad (which is now the street in front of it) to pursue the Oshkosh market which was then the second largest city in the state. It's for sale now.

The 35mm front for the Variable Cuboid has a .25mm pinhole, the 45mm a .27mm, both hand-drilled, mounted in continuously adjustable rising fronts with 10mm of travel above the axis. The film is Kentmere 100 semi-stand developed in caffenol.