Photography

I've been doing a lot of photography lately, in fact, I bought a Canon EOS Digital Rebel Xsi just about a month ago. Along with that, my older, Nikon 7600 Point and Shoot, and various pinholes, I have just been having a wonderful time. The pinhole that I used was the paint can pinhole that was used in Exploring Photography, but since I don't have a dark room, I haven't been able to do much with that lately.

So I started researching making pinholes that I can use film with, and then get the film developed from Walgreens or whatever. So I made a pinhole camera out of a matchbox. Directions can be found here, if you're interested in trying it yourself : http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/
Unfortunately, the roll I took with it did not turn out. There was information on the film, but no visible pictures. I think it was because I was not sure how much to roll the film after each shot, so I was probably getting double or maybe even triple exposures, causing utter chaos on the film.

Another option, that I haven't tried yet is the Dirkon Paper Camera. From the website (http://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/dirkon_01.html) you can download a PDF file that you must print out on cardstock, and then cut along the dotted lines, and construct this paper camera. This one looks a lot more complicated than the matchbox camera, but also a lot cooler.

Most people think I'm crazy to waste my time building cameras. They say "Ryan, you have a really high quality, DSLR that you spent a lot of money on and it takes incredibly good pictures, why would you spend maybe five dollars on supplies and waste time to make a camera where the results are not gonna be as good quality, or there might not even be results." Well, its all about the process, I say. Making the camera is fun, and also, you need to be real careful when making the actual pinhole, and you need to make sure the box or can or whatever is light-proof. Yes, I love my digital camera. More than a lot of things. I know exactly what I'm going to get when I hit that shutter button, and I can change basically anything I want in the camera's settings, or in the lens, to get nice quality images. On the other hand, there is something that I find really thrilling in building your own camera, and then pointing it at something, hoping the pinhole will capture it, and that the exposure that you guessed is correct, so the image is not blown out or underexposed. So I guess it's all about the mystery. The lack of ability to predict what is going to go through that pinhole, and whats going to happen to the light inside the can or box. Is there going to be some strange blurring, or obscure light flares? Where is the focus going to be the most prominent? Its all a complete mystery, but if all those things work together in such a raw application of photography, what normally would be a normal, boring, static shot, could turn into an interesting masterpiece of a shot.

Here are a few links from the post, plust a few photography sites that I enjoy:
http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/ - Matchbox Pinhole
http://www.pinhole.cz/en/pinholecameras/dirkon_01.html - Dirkon Paper Camera
http://peterbaker.net/photos/afterhours/ - Peter Baker Photography. I especially enjoy the "After Hours" gallery...great night shots.
http://www.jamespomerantz.com/main.php - Great photojournalism shots from James Pomerantz
And here is a site where I have some of my photography. Most of the photography is done with my Canon. Some of the earlier photographs are from my Nikon. I haven't had a chance to upload my pinhole shots to the site yet, but eventually will.
http://thinoxygen.deviantart.com/gallery/