snappy happy

During Induction week, one of the more bizarre requests to bring along to the lecture was a can of beer... all be it an empty can of beer, but none the less this formed the basis of what would turn into a simple but still effective camera: PINHOLE photography!

The process of turning a 440ml can into a image capturing device turned out to be a relatively simple process. The most interesting part - my first experience of a dark room. On the funny side there were shenanigans to do with bumping into people, yet coming face to face with a process which can now more or less be deemed "something from the olden days" was almost like revisiting science class: learning which baths of solution did what, finding out how long would be required to develop the photo, not over stepping the mark and leaving them too long. Then the scanning: inverting your negative image on Photoshop to make some sort of sense of it all! I've never done it before, but really enjoyed the creative process, especially as I was able to watch it all from start to finish and pick up techniques to better my next occasion when processing a photograph.

The first shot came out quite well in my opinion: it wasn't blurred, you can see something in it and I hadn't gotten fingerprints etc all over it in the dark room! It has to it almost a brooding, ominous feel you could say - horror film type setting.

I didn't mess around too much with the settings on Photoshop-just having a quick nudge with the contrast settings because of the time constraints and urge to want to try again with another shot.

Admittedly I would probably try to lighten it/remove the strong sentiment of darkness in the photo if I were to sit down and look at it again. It certainly isn't a complete failure, but as always, in any creative field, you can always work on and adjust, to improve your work.

The second shot has a different feel. Firstly, the misty haze could have been due to exposure to too much light, and the vertical lines that split the photo into three sections were down to the curl/fold of the paper in the can. All the photographs taken by students were by no rule of thumb - 'shutter open for 2.5 seconds precisely!' for example. Depending on the strength of the light and placing of the sun meant that some sort of luck came into knowing exactly how long to keep the shutter open.

I do like the way the steps are in the forefront of the picture though and sort of lead you down into the centre of the picture (the pinhole eye shape encompasses the main subjects of the picture).

A second time around for this photo I think would have me looking for more interesting perspectives and different views of the world. Positioned at the bottom of somebody's feet and creating a giant effect would be quite obscure, but cool - a sort of 'worm's eye view!'

Overall, for my first attempt at pinhole photography, I'm pleased and surprised at how simple, but really effective the photographs can turn out. Even if the image was to be shady or blurred, a touch up on Photoshop can put that right and so this is one area that has opened my eyes - a beer can, a black piece of paper and a hole poked in the side can be just as fun and resultive, as the computer packed worlds we're all wrapped up in nowadays.

Signing out again...

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