Pinhole Landscapes - Take 2

I recently uploaded some scans of various pinhole landscapes but hadn't actually printed any out. You can see some of them here and here. I spent a few days in the darkroom the other week and was surprised to see how well the prints turned out. They have a richness, drama and depth of tone completely lacking in the scanned negatives, which now look rather flat in comparison. Of course, looking at an actual print and looking at something on the screen is a completely different experience, but I had never really thought that there would be such a wide discrepancy between a scan of a print and a scan of a negative. Or perhaps it just demonstrates that my darkroom skills are superior to my Photoshop skills!

I now feel encouraged to continue developing my darkroom work and to expand my pinhole photography repertoire, perhaps exploring the urban landscape. I might even try colour......

Pinhole landscapes

After a gap of nearly a year, I took my pinhole camera out again last week. Of course, I had to go back to square one and re-familiarise myself with the instructions though being a very simple camera, it didn't take long! I used different film this time - a roll of Ilford HP5 about 15 years past its use-by date. This is not a film I use very often - I tend to prefer Kodak Tri-X - but it seemed to have suffered no ill effects and actually the results were pretty good. So far I've been using up whatever film I have to hand and most of it is out of date, so this is hardly a controlled experiment.

Looking back at my previous pinhole efforts, I noticed that a lot of the negatives were over-exposed and had to be heavily corrected in Photoshop. This time I cut the exposure right down and the resulting negatives are better. I've been using an app on the phone called Pinhole Assist to calculate exposure times. This seems to work really well and has built-in reciprocity curves for the longer exposures required for the pinhole, saving on having to work it out for yourself! I also took more care with the composition - the best results seem to be when there is something in the foreground close to the camera. I do really like the sense of depth in the images - you feel like you are being sucked into the photograph towards the vanishing point.

Some of the same scenes feature in a previous post where I used the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone. You can see them here and compare the effect - obviously quite different as the phone ones are very dark and dramatic whereas these are lighter and more ethereal, especially No 3 below which is actually a double exposure by mistake where I forgot to wind the film on. I will persevere with my efforts - the sense of satisfaction from using film, the concentration and mindfulness required, the feeling of being totally wrapped up in the moment can't be matched by the ease and instant results of digital!

Pinhole

I was given a beautiful wooden pinhole camera just over a year ago - a Zero Image 69. Made from teak and surprisingly light to carry around, it's a versatile multi-format film camera which can be adjusted by a pair of interior dividers to give a range of formats: 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7 and 6x9. Although I had coveted it for quite some time, it took me a while to bite the bullet and try it out! My only previous pinhole experience was with one made out of an old biscuit tin and the results had not been a success so it was with a fair amount of trepidation that I shot my first roll of film.

It's fair to say that even with a precision made camera like this one, it takes a bit of practice and I'm only just beginning to get the hang of it. The main problem is getting the correct framing and timing - most of the time I seem to have over-estimated the exposure time a little and the framing is a bit hit or miss. I think the trick is to move in closer as it gives a very wide-angled result so it's easy to get in unwanted detail at the edges of the frame. I had imagined that the images would be a bit sharper - I have seen examples where the detail is pin-sharp but mine seem to be rather soft, though the depth of field is there. This combination of softness and depth of field creates an unwordly, ethereal effect which I rather like. The magic of photography in its purest form - produced by what is little more than a box with a hole and some film! 

I haven't printed any of the negatives yet so it will be interesting to see how they compare with the scans. I have plans to take my pinhole camera on an outing soon but in the meantime, here are some examples I took last year......

Marshland sights and sounds

On my last visit to Swanscombe Marsh I was initially struck by the sense of peace and quiet but the more I wandered, the more my ear became attuned to the variety of sounds in the landscape. Whenever I stood still to concentrate and take a photograph, I became aware of the insistent, sibilant rustling of the reeds, the creaking of the willows, the warbling and chattering of various birds and the occasional strident cry of an unseen pheasant that seemed to be stalking me. The mournful, melancholy hooting of the riverboats and the distant background clanking and beeping of machinery were a constant reminder of the human activity taking place on the periphery of the site. In the little creek the masts of the boats rattled and jangled and the wind tugged at the flapping tarpaulin.

Everywhere were signs of life emerging from the long sleep of winter - trees in bud, pussy willows and silver birch, yellow coltsfoot, an incongruous clump of daffodils, and fat bumblebees lazily buzzing around. As well as the flocks of black headed gulls circling the river, I also saw mallards, coots, magpies, pigeons, and some sort of unidentified warbler swooping low over the grass. Other signs of activity were less welcome - the burnt patches of grass and evidence of pollution in the pools testifying to man's intervention in the landscape. Nature, however, seems to be able to adapt and make the best of things in the most inhospitable and unpromising places..... 

Not Dark Yet

"Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain"

Not Dark Yet, from Time Out of Mind
Bob Dylan

Spring comes to Swanscombe Marsh

Typical April weather with a stiff breeze, intermittent sunshine and scudding clouds transformed the marsh on my last visit there two weeks ago. The sun lifted the palette of soft yellows and greens, highlighting the buds bursting on the bushes and bringing alive the reed beds. Occasional patches of yellow flowers nestled on the beds of the stream and the wind rippled the surface of the water in the pools, the reflected sky turning them a deep blue. The whole place felt scrubbed and fresh and my winter cobwebs were blown away. I came away feeling uplifted.

Whilst pottering around the little creek where the boats are moored I met one of the inhabitants - a man who has been building a houseboat there for about a year. He gave me a bit of background information about the place: officially a boat club, in reality it is a place where men come to tinker with their boat building and renovating projects. He was a local man and had previously worked on the river for years, but had only recently been aware of the existence of the creek.

The boats are in a variety of states - some only worth scrap like the huge barge waiting for a tide high enough to float it and be taken away, and some like the battleship built from scratch. One or two people live there but the majority visit off and on. It has a delightfully dilapidated, ramshackle air but you can easily imagine that the people using it view it as a sort of haven, an escape from work and the chores of everyday life. What will happen to it if and when the theme park gets built is not known but I would hazard a guess that Paramount would  prefer to have a neat and tidy sanitised version!

Spring is cancelled this year II

Here is a different take on the same subject matter as my last post.  Instead of using my digital SLR, I shot these using black and white film on the Hasselblad.  The square format gives a different, perhaps more formal feel, and the black and white lends a more sombre and melancholy note.

The snow has all but disappeared now, and much as I enjoy using the snow as a backdrop to my photographs, I sincerely hope we have seen the last of it for this year!

On Swanscombe Marsh II

Some more pictures from my recent Swanscombe Marsh trip...

I pretty much had the place to myself for three hours though did come across a couple of people - a solitary man striding along, a father with his young daughter on bikes and a man walking his dog. The latter stopped to talk to me and I was struck by his enthusiasm for the place. He told me that he had been coming here regularly for 6 or 7 years and appreciated the peace and quiet and the wide-open spaces. There were carp to be found in the pools and he had even seen a kingfisher on occasions. Sadly, he said that quite a lot of local people were in favour of the proposed development as they thought it might bring about an increase in the value of their homes, better road infrastructure and lots of jobs. The surrounding area is quite run down and who can blame people for wanting what many would see as improvements - peace and quiet and open space cannot compete with these sorts of benefits in most people's eyes.

I can imagine that many people looking at these photographs would wonder what was worth preserving - it is after all a rather desolate and scrappy looking landscape littered with pylons and bits of rusting metal. It is difficult to measure the importance of this kind of liminal space on the edge of the city but once built upon, it will be gone forever. And does the world really need another theme park? I know which I would prefer.....