2018 Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day

As always, the last Sunday in April is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. Getting accepted in and participating in a couple of shows and exhibitions has been pretty intoxicating, so it was a pleasure to go out and take photos just for the joy of participation.

I didn’t make a new lens this year, I just re used the one from last year

I went out with one subject in mind, and fortunately, got distracted by all of the possibilities I found along the way.

How could I resist the Emeryville City Hall,  one of my favorite East Bay buildings?

As I was shooting, I notice this interesting Giraffe* out in front of a café’

I returned home, and shot a couple of our household friends, a wall shelf in the dining room

 

 

and this Cat head doll my daughter made

 

 

In the end, I chose to use the Giraffe, it was more fun.

 

You can see the post here-

http://www.pinholeday.org/gallery/2018/?id=1091

 

But the greatest pleasure of the WWPPD website is to just start anywhere, and start scrolling through all of the terrific images that have been submitted from all over the world. Because I am a Do it Yourselfer, my additional pleasure is seeing all of the really clever contraptions my colleagues have devised to capture their images.

This ingenuity is still one of the strongest elements of being humans-making our own tools.

 

*No animals were harmed in the shooting of this photo.

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Focus is Overrated

The last Sunday in April was Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

Like everything else, pinhole photography sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t, and most of the results can be mediocre (including my own).

I am attracted to alternative photography, not because of my contrarian nature, but because it is about experimentation, and the unpredictability of experimentation is vital to what we do. In order to progress, you’ve gotta try stuff.

When shooting film, there was always an element of unpredictability. Even if you were a seasoned photographer who carefully composed your shot in the viewfinder, there was still an element of serendipity in every exposure. Maybe less so in the climate controlled studio, but this is certainly true out in the real world, with all of its moving parts.

Diane Arbus is said to have commented, “I never have taken a picture I’ve intended to. They’re always better or worse”.

I probably haven’t shot film for close to 10 years, but on the last Sunday in April I happened to have a borrowed camera with film, so I bought body caps for the film and digital cameras, and made a couple of pinhole lenses.

There are calculations for this sort of thing, and someday it might be fun to sit down and calculate aperture and focal length, but the experimentation is part of the fun-especially with digital, since it doesn’t cost anything to make the exposure (there is also that instant gratification thing).

Pinhole Day is for everybody, as long as your image is lensless  there are no limitations or restrictions (maybe pinhole porn wouldn’t be appropriate, but….).

 

Here are a few of the shots from that day, they are mostly unsatisfying,

Black and White film

Black and White film

Black and White film

Color print film

Color print film

Color print film

Digital

Digital

Digital

 

but the one I submitted to WWPPD is kind of fun-

Digital

 

WWPPD is not about any one participant, it is sort of an instant community of enthusiasts, and I think the best way to enjoy the site is to just go to the site, and start scrolling-

http://pinholeday.org/gallery/2017/index.php?page=1