Part II

I have been trying to get myself to continue on with my rambling from the previous post, but i've been busy all weekend with work and family and have a lot to get done in the next couple of days.
I feel as though i would not be entirely unjustified in running away and joining the circus... at least for this week at any rate. Procrastination is bad.
Anyway, to continue on with our epic tale of photography...

On Pins and Pinholes...
(it was almost a clever title... fell a little short)
So i'm currently enrolled in Photo III and it's a non-silver semester, meaning that we are not offering photo I classes specifically because we do not want to have to deal with the silver-based printing (film and prints) because photoI kids are idiots and it's not good to contaminate non-silver processes with silver... long sentence, let me explain.
Iron based processes, which fall under the category of alternative process/historical process (Whatever you prefer to call it) are incompatable with silver processes. in other words, if you accidently mix the two together (which would happen in a 15'x30' space) both processes would end up being f*cked up and you would have some very irritated students on both sides.

But the photoI kids would be responsible for the mix-up b/c they usually are.

at any rate. we started the semester doing pinhole works. the two images above are both from my paint-'can'mera. The next few are from a concept camera i made with cardboard, duct-tape and some felt. It runs 35mm film from its spool on one side, through the camera body and into an empty spool on the other side.
Then, instead of a lens, like a normal camera would have, i have two pinholes on the front of the box that work like bare apertures (which are actually somewhere around an f200) and allow an image to expose to the film when i remove the tape that works as a ghetto shutter device.

If my description of how these things were made has absolutely no basis in reality to you, don't worry about it. It's terribly geeky, and i'm ashamed to go into too much detail about it without giving fair warning to my unsuspecting victims. If you're truly interested (as i feel everyone should be... but that's just me). I can explain it all to you in good detail over an extended amount of time.


This one proves troublesome for some people to see. the background is a fence (OOOhhhh... that's what that is! yes. a fence) and the red blob on the bottom right is a rose. on the left is my shadow. following? i exposed the two pinholes at seperate times, but in the same place. fancy huh? duct-tape and some pin-holes, i tell ya what...


merry go rounds!!! well.. actually just one. for some reason those things just stick out in my memory growing up. Which is part of my concept i'm working on in class right now (i hate talking about such things b/c it makes me feel really bohemian and artsy-fartsy). Up til the age of 8, my family lived a block away from a really small park, which really only boasted a merry-go-round, some swings and a basketball court. I used to love playing at that park... random aside.
anyway...

and then there's sad bear... a poor little abandoned bear who i found in the middle of winter in a parking lot one day. He's kind of silly and cliche with those wings and how i always photograph him when he's a bit down on his luck, but he makes an easy subject.
i don't have to call him up and coordinate schedules. He doesn't argue with the ridiculous things i put him through. one time i left him dangling from a garbage can b/c it had a smiley face drawn on it...
good times.

The images of sad bear were taken with a different POS plastic camera called a Diana, which i guess was the original POS of plastic cameras. They used to give them away for free as little bonus gifts in the sixties and seventies, i guess. I payed a fair amount of money to get mine, but it has a pin-hole setting on it as well.
It's actually quite fancy compared to the Holga. It actually has a number of different aperature settings and functions a little differently. I haven't taken much time to experiment with it yet, but i am excited at the prospect of trying it out more in the near future.

after i stop abusing the poor winged teddy bear i have.


Now what?
I'm currently working on some images for printing in cyanotype (something i actually have to get done tomorrow because it's due on tuesday in class... eek!).
I went shooting on friday though, for the first time in a while, and it was rather refreshing. The weather was gorgeous and i love the fall, so i went to the park to see if i could find anything worth turning blue eventually. I borrowed the university's lens baby (a lens that you can manipulate the focus area on so that it has an extremely shallow depth of field or can blur the image in such bizarre ways).

It was really nice to just go out and take photos. I know, i was still working on a class assignment specifically, and i'm kind of tired of that being the only time i go out with my camera. I used to love taking pictures all the time because it was my opportunity to focus on the way the world around me appears. my perception of the places i frequent... the first pin-hole image i posted above (from the paint-can) is of the doorway leading out to the balcony in the Fine Arts building. above the frame of the door, someone scrawled out, "look up more often."

I know that it's just another kooky art student trying to make profound statements and irritating the living daylights out of people at the same time (not sure how many people remember all the friendly hippy messages that were scratched out with sidewalk chalk all over campus... that's taking it a little too far). I like that message though. Look up more often. appreciate the little things that surround you. people tend to neglect their ability to see. they obviously are using their eyes most of the time, but i wonder at how many little things people take for granted.

Just some things to think about. In the meantime, i promise to try my darndest to get to taking pictures more. posting little bits and pieces here and there.
I'm working on it.
really.