Pinhole Venice Study 1

Pinhole photography has rather a cult following these days, just visit sites like http://www.f295.org/ or http://www.pinholesolutions.co.uk/ to get inspired. Pinhole cameras can be made from shoe boxes, biscuit tins, matchboxes, infact anything that can be made light tight and can accept either photographic paper of film.

You can of course do what I did and by one!, not only is it a lot easier there are some wonderful wooden, handmade models made by companies like Zero Imaging http://www.zeroimage.com/ and it was from Zero Imaging that I bought my "2000" model. This little gem takes 120 size film that giove you 6cmx6cm negatives.

I took my pinhole camera with me when my Wife and I went on a Birthday/anniversary trip to Venice in August this year and although I got some funny looks the sheer unpredictability of pinhole photography combined with the liberating freedom of not having to worry about fstops and shutter speeds (if you use proper manual cameras that is) was really fantastic.

Venice has lots of these drinking fountains and they seem to be running all the time, which on the face of it seems a bit of a waste.

Hope you kile the photo.

More soon

Morris Minor, Northern Ireland

This is quite an old photo, taken on a business trip to Northern Ireland probably 10 years ago. I can't remember exactly where I was at the time.

The camera was my OM-1n (still in use and is a fantastic manual camera to use) with a 28mm lens.

The image for scanning was printed on Ilford MG resin coated but I have since made some 12X16 fibre prints for hanging.

I rediscovered the negative the other day when pottering around in my darkroom looking for some "new" (ones I have,'t had a go at printing) negatives to print when I came across this and visualised it as a 12X16 fibre print hanging in the hall way.

The photo was partially bleached until the highlights were just about affected, washing with clean water then halts further bleaching.

I made up a mix of warm brown "sepia" tona to tone the highlights only - the toner works by replacing the bleached image tones.

A 10% solution of selenium toner bath then deepened the shadows slightly.

If you like any of the images you see on this blog and would like me to produce a 12X16 fibre print for you just drop me a line.

All for now