Pinhole Day XXV

For the third year in a row, my Pinhole Day has been centered around leading a pinhole experience at Photo Opp. It had rained the last two years but this year was beautiful weather. Ironically, there were only four participants, down from ten at the last two damp events. Char Brandis was there to document the festivities for Photo Opp history and promotion. I drilled a hole in her body cap and mounted a pinhole in it. She really did a neat job with that. The flange on that Sony Alpha series is really close to a big sensor, so quite a wide angle.

I had decided quite a while ago to use the Diversity 30. It's a little picky about film advance, so I didn't want a rookie choosing it. Also for its diverse and inclusive design, of course.

Not taking any chances on Pinhole Day, I made one exposure before I left home. The Buddha always looks cheerful, but this morning I thought it looked like the plants were tickling him.

I met Chris Dearing, one of the participants, at a Photo Opp event about a month ago.  He told me that he owned a print from Ruth Thorne-Thomsen's famous Expedition series and her book, Within This Garden. I asked if he could bring them on Pinhole Day. I made up a display of her influence on me with my book The Pinhole of Nature, a camera of the design she gave me, and my syllabus from the semester she came to Knox College. Unfortunately, hardly anyone saw it, and it looks like I did a brief double exposure on this frame.

Behind every door you open, the space is filled with donated equipment, mostly from the analog era. 

Enamoured of stairwells lately, I tried to get both the stairs and the windows, but even at 90 degrees, the camera wasn't wide enough.

The renovations are close to completion, but the front wall is still in fase di restauro. The niche is curious. If I ever give a talk at Photo Opp, I want to deliver it from up there. Funny how the wide angle makes the pew at the right look twice as big as me.

The darkroom is plumbed and functional, but full of extra equipment and a few of the restoration tools.

The film refrigerator, full of outdated film in every format you can imagine. I have a roll of Ilford XP2 in a camera right now, outdated in 2001, that they have about twenty rolls of but no one has tried. I just accidentally bought three rolls of outdated 220 film, which has no numbered backing paper, and I'm not sure will fit on a normal developing reel. Has anybody tried advancing just a certain number of rotations for each frame? Maybe I can run it through Photo Opp's processing machine?

Sort of a group photo. Chris Dearing, who brought the Thorne-Thomsen print, myself, Chris's pal Matt Daniels, and board members Brandi Grahl and Char Brandis. Giles La Rock, whom I've photographed in the past with an even wider camera, is just out of the picture to the left.

The round window in the west end of the nave was covered by a dropped ceiling when they bought the building. I don't think anyone anticipated how fascinated everyone was going to be by the spotlight projected by that oculus.

Back home, I was greeted by Kibitz and a few of his accessories in the sunbeam from the stairway window. 

It has to be well past the Equinox if the sun is shining across the north wall of the garage onto my bicycle.

Our magnolia in full display.

I haven't decided which to submit for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. I've got negatives from the Manic Expression Cube drying now, but it will probably be one of the above. You'll have to check the Pinhole Day Gallery to find out.

The Diversity 30 has .23mm pinholes on the axis and 11mm above it, 30mm from a 6x6cm frame. The film is Lomography 800 developed in a Cinestill Liter Powder C41 Kit.