It’s been kind of wet this week, which usually bring out a symphony of tree frogs.
This guy has been hanging around the back door for the past couple of days.
And then, there’s this thing, the habañero ear worm. They taste horrible, but I’m hoping the frog will like them.
I spent the day with my daughter’s school band in Hershey, PA. Here’s a little of what I saw.
Porcupine in a tree
A real roadrunner
Nocturnal fox
Sidewinder snake
“Do you like pancakes? Yes, I like pancakes.”
There is a huge photo processing lab two doors down from my office. It was established decades ago within my department and once employed about 30 people (dunno if that number is completely accurate, but it’s certainly big enough to have done so). I mentioned to my friends there that my daughter and I are interested in pinhole photography.
One of my colleagues loaned me a very nice pinhole camera. It’s reliable and has given me the chance to work examine exposure times with a particular aperture. Here’s the first round of results. I’m still figuring this out, which is a lot of fun.
The Camera
My Studio
In the backyard
Sitting with my daughter sketching
Sitting alone sketching
Self Portrait
Working
Godzilla in the Garden
Godzilla in the Garden
Godzilla in the Garden – if you look at the picture below, you can see he moved his hand from high to low…
The Monster Rebellion (click for larger)
More soon.
On Saturday, I had one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had. That of my daughter.
We spent the day at the American Visionary Art Museum learning about pinhole photography and camera obscura. The workshop was co-lead by Guillaume Pallat and Chris Peregoy, who were both generous with their experience and satisfyingly different in their approaches.
From Wikipedia: A pinhole camera is a very simple camera with no lens and a single very small aperture. Simply explained, it is a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box. Cameras using small apertures, and the human eye in bright light both act like a pinhole camera.
We spent the morning working in the studio constructing various cameras. A pinhole camera can be made from just about anything – an oatmeal container, cigar box, old cans, paper bags, refrigerators – even books. Here’s the birthday girl working with Guillaume to transform an old denim covered pencil box into a camera (she’ll tell you how it worked on on her blog).
The book cameras actually work really well. Here, Ms. Felice is creating a chamber in the center of a book. The pages then get glued together, and the inside has to be painted with a matte black finish to prevent any light reflection inside the camera.
A finished book camera.
Someone made a camera from a cooler:
A small cardboard film box, which worked really well because the inside is already black:
Chis made a camera from a manky old soccer ball:
Suitcases make great cameras. Who knew?
Step one: drill the crap out of it and paint the inside black.
Step two: Create an aperture from four razor blades.
Step three: Take a picture.
Coco, Chris and I sat outside AVAM and talked for about 13 minutes – that’s how long it took to get the exposure. Guillaume guessed that the suitcase would be light tight once closed. We should have taped the seam, though, as there was “light leak” which you can see in the photo below. Lesson learned. Tape everything.
My favorite is this Twinnings tea can, which was my first camera. Step one was to make it dark (not shiny).
I used a piece of pie tin for the aperture. Soda cans work well, too.
I placed my camera in the garden wall at AVAM.
We stood still for 5 minutes, while other art viewers wandered casually in and out of our photo. Here’s the wonderful ghostly result – a portrait of my 11 year old daughter and me on her birthday:
This was an amazing workshop and a wonderful day. Thanks to Coco for going with me, Felice at AVAM for being so cool to Coco and I, and to Chris & Guillaume for sharing so many ideas with us.
Happy birthday, Coco! I love you.