Little Free Libraries on Little Free Film

When writing about using a rescued 100 foot roll of 35mm Kodak Tri-X that had expired in about 1985, I kept thinking about it as my Little Free Film, especially if used in my miniscule Manic Expression Cube. I remembered thinking once during my pandemic summer of Manic Expression that the Little Free Libraries one finds around town would be a good project for the little camera. Going past one recently something clicked and a blog title was born.

Since going to the Praire Avenue Branch of the South Bend Public Library even before I could read, my life has been associated with libraries and of course, books. I've always admired the Little Free Library movement. They're an international organization promoting front yard libraries with free books, selling the little enclosures and providing a web site and mobile app that shows where they are. It was all started right here in the American midwest in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The nearest to our house is just across the street from Merrill Middle and Elementary School. I was curious about what content was available in these but I didn't want to snoop through them. My general impression is that they're full of early readers and young adult novels.

What do you think the stabilizing straps are supposed to do on the side which is leaning over? Looks like there's a wedge in the front of the post so it's probably over corrected from leaning the other way.

A little further west on New York Avenue. In addition to the interesting title, Plague, was the most controversial title I recognized, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, a challenging read in almost any context.

Some have added decoration such as this faux-window on the side.

The little library at North High School is pretty disorganized and is missing a good chunk of a roof tile. 

It's right next to one of the exits where the madness of drop-off/pick-up occurs on Smith Avenue.

On the no-exit Nicolet Avenue, which ends at Lake Winnebago, with a basket of flowers to enhance the experience.

This was the only one with a separate "Book Donation" box.  The motto of the movement is "Take a book, share a book," but they encourage larger donations as well which they use to supply new libraries.

The Bowen Street Laundromat, a subject for my little camera in the past, has a shelf inside registered with the movement.

Despite the sunny day, that pesky Inverse Square Law made exposures inside quite long. Looking for a place to sit, I was pleased to find this illustration at the end of the shelf.

Hickory Lane is another dead end along the shore of Lake Winnebago, apparently near some cottonwoods, which give a little creepy aspect to this collection,

Keeping these little structures plumb seems to be a common problem.

Riding along Irving Avenue, I encountered one that wasn't registered with the international movement.

It included a bench to peruse the selection with a sign crediting it to the local neighborhood association.

Stevens Park is surrounded by quiet neighborhoods so nobody else knows it's there. The library is sponsored by an individual but it's nice the city let them put it here.

It's a nice shady spot to scan the titles.

One is hosted by an addiction recovery agency on an otherwise residential street.

As I was setting this up, a guy came from the parking lot and said "You're taking a picture with a box." 

I replied "Yes, with a pinhole" 

He said "With a what?" 

I repeated myself and he got a quizzical look on his face and continued into the building.

Across the lawn next to the sidewalk on busy Ninth Avenue, another unregistered example put up by an affluent looking church. It had mostly religious titles but there were a few popular novels,

While I was adjusting the camera, a woman came around from behind me, opened the library, took one of the novels and continued down the street without acknowledging my presence.

Another church, this time registered and attached to the wall.

A bench to sit and read. Just out of the picture to the right, some kind of childrens' event was getting out with continuous traffic of parents picking them up. Nobody stopped for a second to see what I was doing.

This one on the west side is kind of in the middle of the yard. I was hesitant to approach with the tripod and then realized they must expect people to walk out on their lawn to get to it.

The door was slightly open. There's a little planter on the side but it doesn't look like it's been gotten to this spring.

At West High School, another with a door that won't stay closed. I wanted to feature that grafitti tag but the door kept swinging in the slight breeze. The side nearer the hinges doesn't seemed to have moved enough to blur the drawing.

It's out near the street a bit away from the school but where it's again right in the midst of the twice a day child transportation melee.

Another on city property but chartered to an individual teacher in the school district. The collection mostly consisted of several years worth of a youth craft magazine.

It's right in front of Roosevelt Elementary School

A little of the impetus of this project has been a surge in our own book collection, which Sarah has featured for the current tableau on top the piano.

One distinguishing feature of physical printed books is that you can read them perfectly well in the direct sunshine.

The Manic Expression Cube has a .17mm hand-drilled pinhole on an adjustable rising front with 7mm of travel, 24mm from a 24x24mm frame. The venerable Tri-X was semi-stand developed in venerable Rodinal 1:100.

Particularly analytical readers will probably have noticed I still have a  problem with pointing this camera up and the to left of where I want it. Most of these are cropped a bit. That does give them kind of a randomly captured quality. I've adjusted the beads on the moving shutter again, and am going to add some beads to line up at the top instead of just the cardboard triangle and try to find another clever title for the Tri-X.

Happy Father's Day. Go read a book with your kid.

It is better to light some film rather than curse the sunbeam.

While I'm cooking, I usually sit and use my computer on the marble table by the west kitchen window. From May until September, if the sun is shining, it falls directly on the screen and I can't see anything. Trying to be positive about this, I decided to use the sunbeam to photograph anything I could find to place into it. I had been trying to decide if I wanted to commit to another "36" exposure roll with my 35mm film, square format Manic Expression Cube and this thought sealed the deal. There was a roll of Acros 100 in the freezer. Numerous white business reply envelopes, that I save to store negatives in, were handy to reflect some fill light. 

Immediately available was one of my favorite models, a Constoluto Genovese tomato.

There was a sale on various colors of bell peppers.

The first parsley harvested from volunteers in the garden.

A dried rose which has been sitting with the tomatoes for a couple weeks.

The sunbeam makes it all the way into the corner of the pantry.

Looks like these have been in there a while.

Another stalwart from the pantry.

Sarah asked me to get a small watermelon.

The checkered sugar bowl.

A few tools are kept in the basket by the window. It seems to me the screwdriver and the needlenose pliers are trying to calm the excited vice-grips

Mickey and Minnie visit from the dining room.

The little green mister that came with the micro-greens kit.

A spiky little succulent from the south kitchen window.

The sun shines on the table on the lanai as well so I can't use the computer out there either.

We interrupt our program for a special weather bulletin: Picturesque puffy clouds have been spotted growing over Lake Winnebago. I rode over there to use my one-frame 4x5 camera, but this tiny camera is pretty easy to take along. This is about the same scene as I did with the big camera, but only about two thirds as wide angle and a twentieth as much film.

A bit to the left to feature the largest cloud that led me down here in the first place.

Directly across Millers Bay looking at the Ames Point breakwater.

The view south with the clouds a little back lit. I'd forgotten to take a black card and was using my black phone case to uncover the pinhole for a shake-free exposure and simultaneously accomplished making a Facetime call to Sarah!

There were no heirloom tomatoes at the store, so I had to revert to the on-the-vine variety.

Mulitcolored cherry tomatoes on a bed of spring mix.

The new bouquet.

The glasses I got after my first cataract surgery in 2007, and my current prescription after the lens was replaced in the other eye ten years later. I can see about as well with both of them,

The remainders from an earlier floral arrangement.

The watermelon was for Summerween.

Batman maintains order in the kitchen.

Godzilla provides reinforcement. Although he lost his voice after hundreds of dives in dishwater and a foot during a ten year wrestling match with Lars Ulrich, he's still a fearsome presence.

And now a Public Service Announcement from the Oshkosh Saturday Farmers Market. 

Volunteer photographers are available to pose for your pinhole camera.

First market is always a little sparse with the choices of vegetables. The lady with the greenhouse tomatoes does great business this time of year.

A wad of bills left after the mostly cash-only market.

The top end of a bunch of asparagus.

I'd better use up this brocolli.

And make another loaf of bread.

Looking further afield in the living room for subjects.

The bunny atop the cocktail shaker looks very skeptical.

Finally a shady place to sit after the sun goes behind the garage.

I have to say I'm impressed by this little camera. Disparaging 35mm pinhole is a common theme on-line which I think is ignoring great potential. I'm not saying I don't see the difference between these and larger film formats but sometimes it's easy to forget. How far did you go before you forgot these were just 24x24mm negatives done with a hand-drilled pinhole? Would you have just assumed this was medium format if I hadn't fessed up right away?

Another surprise is how fine-grained these are. In my last try with Acros, it seemed pretty grainy. The processing was the same except that last roll I used slightly less dilute Rodinal. Don't see how that should make this much difference.

I probably shouldn't admit this, but doing all this close-up work, a lot of the time the composition was a little off and about a third of these are cropped to two-thirds of the tiny negative. Can you tell which ones?

There's another roll of the Acros, I just ordered a roll of Rollei RPX 25 because I was so impressed by the fine grain of the Agfa APX25 I just shot, and there's still 60 feet or so of the vintage Tri-X I found. It's looks like there's a lot of playing with this camera in my future.

A successful half-dozen sheets of ancient 4x5 Plus-X

After therapy with a roll of 120 film and a continuing prescription of Manic Expression, I successfully exposed and processed six sheets of the 40-year-old 4x5 Plus-X rescued from the transition to digital in my department early in the millenium. I had been leading the transition to digital graphics on the whole campus for some time, so I can't be too critical.

My first ventures with the big old film revealed I was being too trusting of my changing bag and even unfogged negatives, when developed, had odd marks which I attributed to the film resting against the hanger during stand development. A few weeks ago, I again confidently set forth with the Pinhole Lab Camera and the changing bag, making sure to swap the film in as deep a shadow as I could. I even had a black jacket on. Alas, it looks like reloading this big camera just takes too much wiggling and it seems the teensy amount of light it takes to fog film snuck in through the sleeves.

I exposed another six sheets, this time loaded entirely in the darkroom, all with the camera set up for the 60mm film plane with .28mm pinholes. Some of those previous sheets which had been semi-stand developed looked like they were unevenly developed as well, so I did normal agitation with Rodinal 1:50, this time with a Paterson MOD54 4 x 5" Sheet Film Holder.

There doesn't seem to be any exposure-fogging or serious base-fogging in the vintage Plus-X and no issues with uneven development. The Paterson System is much less trouble than hangers and tanks and uses much less developer. It's a little tricky to load compared to hangers, but you can't beat daylight processing.

I'd been watching the dappled sunlight on the hostas just outside the lanai for days before I got up my courage to make an exposure.

Intruding into the top of that picture is the larger hosta next to it.

A dark coleus.

Just after a brief shower, the mad profusion of No-Mow May in the garden when we allow the globe flowers and daisies to feed the bees.

While mowing the front lawn on a sweaty afternoon, I watched these picturesque clouds build over Lake Winnebago. Despite only having one frame in the camera available to capture them, I rode over for the reflection in Miller's Bay

I had to do a little rising front architectural work, this time at two scales. Maybe I'll go on some one-frame-available bike rides with it in the future. 

These files were created with a 55mm, f3.5 Micro-NIKKOR-P·C Auto (which is older than the film) on a Nikon D750. I just metered it in the middle and I think that's giving me too dense images, but with 16-bit grey scale you've got plenty of data to play with. Experimenting with digital camera capture of negatives is another thing I seem to have to force myself to do.

For the next six sheets, I'm going out to the 90mm film plane with the .34mm pinholes and try semistand developing again. There are 75 sheets of the Plus-X left.