Being Experimental

In the last post I talked about the conception of the Lancoast essay and focused a little on the Micropress 4" x 5" camera that I converted to a pinhole camera.  Well, the time had come to test it.

Roe Lee Pavilion - Rollei ATO 2.1
exposed for 3 seconds processed
in Rodinol 1:300 for 12 minute

I had taken a couple of shots with it before but they hadn't turned out very well mainly down to my inexperience with this format of film processing and shooting.  The way round it?  Learn more, shoot more!

The first two shots that came out of the camera had an issue with them.  

Firstly, I developed the negative in a tank with not quite enough chemical in it.  My maths, my fault!

Secondly; there was an artifact on the negative and I couldn't work out why.  The answer was simple and complicated at the same time.

Roe Lee Pavilion - Rollei ATO 2.1 exposed for 75 seconds
processed in Rodinol 1:300 for 12 minute

I had temporarily secured the pinhole shim with masking tape, just to try out the camera.  The bottom of the shin had come away causing a slight light leak on to the negative.  Simple.  The artifact pattern was a little more complicated.  The way the film is produced caused an odd light distribution pattern and was the reason I overlooked the obvious.  Nicholas Middleton talks about it a little here.  This page is invaluable for anyone wishing to experiment with this film.

After taking the camera to bits I re-secured the shim with duct tape (the material without all building projects would fail!).  Time to load some more film.

A few weeks earlier a couple of us were discussing shooting with the pinhole and the length of exposure.  The calculator I was using gave an exposure time of 3 seconds.  Bob thought that it was too short but any instructions I found regarding the film did not intimate any reciprocity failure. So the next shoot was to be an experiment in exposure length.  The first shot was taken at 3 seconds which the exposure calculator suggested.  The second shot was taken using the the reciprocity failure of FP4+ as a guide (is was the only guide I had to hand.  Must luck harder!).   The exposure time became become 75 seconds.  The result, Bob was right!  In fact I think 75 seconds isn't quite long enough!

Both negatives were developed in a tray under red light using Massive Dev Charts recommendations of 1:300 Rodinol for 12 minutes.  The result.  A usable image.  Not quite perfect yet, but we're getting there!

The Story of Lancoast

 

Lancoast is a very unusual essay for me as it starts with a concept.  The concept has been borne out of many an hour pondering what to do and how to do it.  Normally with one of my essays it begins with an accident, a happening that makes a realisation.  This essay has come about the other way.  The idea first.

Nearly twelve months ago I happened to be talking to a friend of mine about shooting some film and the discussion came round to idea that I fancied having a go at building a pinhole camera; probably a large format pinhole camera at that.  The next time we met, Bob, handed to me a Micropress 4” x 5” camera that had been broken but would make a suitable toy for me to play with.

The reason I wanted to shoot a pinhole?

I’ve long admired really long exposure images for quite some time and even played with them myself (with a digital camera).  I also love the quality of a large format photograph.  There is something very beautiful and tactile about handling one of these large negatives.  Knowing that you can get a really sharp image from a pinhole camera then this seemed an obvious choice.  The combination of a really small aperture and slow film would surely bring about the images that I was looking for.

Of course not every subject suits long exposures.  The flow of water and the movement of the sky are subjects that really become something else when this type of photography is used.

It didn’t take me long to hit on the idea of using Lancashire’s coastline as the subject.  I want something quite stark, minimalist, and monochromatic but at the same time recognisable.

I have also started to develop ideas of what I want the final outcome of the essay to be.

I’ve been toying with the idea using alternative processes to create prints for a while and it seems fitting that photographs of the Lancashire Coastline should be printed using a constituent of sea water, salt.

This is early days.  These are ideas.  Come back soon and see how the essay is developing.