Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (WPPD for short) is fast approaching. It always happens on the last Sunday in April, every year. So that means it is this Sunday. While I tend to celebrate pinhole cameras more than one day a year, it is a great opportunity to remind myself just how much I love these lensless boxes. I have literally traveled around the world with them, carried them for decades now. Made months-long exposures of the sun, photographed from inside my oven, made a pinhole portrait once while getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist, and have even explored exposing with only my fingers forming the aperture to focus light. I even turned my bedroom into a camera obscura once and then set up a pinhole camera inside that and made a three day exposure. I use these cameras so often and in so many ways it is easy to become used to them always being around. And then pinhole day comes by and I sit down and pore through my archives of pinhole photos and see them all at once and it strikes me yet again the breadth and wonder encapsulated within that body of work. When you make pinhole images one or two at a time (or any type of image for that matter), one after the other, it can be easy to miss the scope of what you accomplish, of the fun you have. And that is what WPPD means for me. It is a chance to pause and reflect, and then recommit to these fun and funky cameras.

As luck would have it, I will be having a road trip this weekend, so I am going to have at least two pinhole cameras packed with me. I am not entirely sure which two yet. Currently I am leaning toward my Zero Image 2000 and either my Reality So Subtle 6x12 or 6x17. But that is kind of neither here nor there. What is more relevant is enjoying the work one does with these cameras and making a point to do a bit more of it this weekend.

Zero Image 2000
Silberra Color 100

Tags:   Silberra Color 100 Zero Image 2000 New York New York City Manhattan World Trade Center lensless Zero Image film Medium Format

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Because nothing beats arriving for your wedding at the Grotto in a stretch Hummer. This little scene was too good to pass up. The lens flare was an extra bonus and unexpected due to the fact I was using a Lomo LC-A, which does not offer through-the-lens viewing. On that note the LC-A is the 79th camera tag I have added to my collection. This day it was loaded with my first roll of Ferrania P33, which became my 112th film tag. Both of these numbers are pretty under-reported but I have only been tagging camera and film types for about 5 years now.

Anyway, tonight was the monthly Grid meeting and we were sharing March's Grid - J12, which included both The Grotto and Rocky Butte. Another tangential note: the Portland Grid Project is coming up on its 30th anniversary. Milestones. The group wants to plan some type of cool exhibition of the three decades of work but that is a task all itself.

Closing note: I am pretty impressed with Ferrania P33. It seems a bit tamer than its slower P30 sibling, but that may be due to more accurate developing times. Dunno. Too early to tell. But first roll results looked nice.

Lomo LC-A
Ferrania P33

Tags:   Lomo LC-A Ferrania P33 Portland Grid Project Grid J12 3/24 Portland Oregon PDX America

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This image perfectly represents the problems I have with 35mm film. The biggest issue for me is that it takes me so long to finish a roll. I am too methodical for 35mm anymore. I loaded this roll into my pinhole camera in August of 2022, shot 2/3 of the roll on a trip to Victoria, BC then promptly forgot about it. I set the camera aside, played with other pinhole cameras and then when I got the itch to shoot my 35mm pinhole again it was late March of 2024 and by this point I had forgotten there was even film in the camera still. I remembered quickly enough when I popped the lid of the camera and saw a roll inside rapidly soaking up all the light I was pouring into the camera. Thankfully this was not my first time inadvertently exposing a loaded roll of film and my reflexes kicked in and a dark bathroom got me the rest of the way to making sure I didn't spoil this roll. Even seeing the film once I had rewound it gave me no clue as to what I had been shooting with it when first loaded. It was not until I saw the developed negatives and realized this was a leftover roll from that Victoria trip that the pieces all came together in my memory. I guess if I am being fair, the length of time it takes me to get through a roll of 35mm is not the only issue at play here. There is also the fact that I have so many pinhole cameras that this one was able to sit out of rotation for way too long. And the fact that I really should be better about putting sticky notes on my cameras noting the film type loaded. But hey...

As far as what is going on in this image, I was using the Reality So Subtle 35R pinhole camera. It has two pinholes, one on the front of the camera and another on the back of the camera. You can expose your film either normally on the emulsion side, or through the reverse side of the film creating a redscale effect. Or, as in what I did here, you can make two exposures one via the front and then turn the camera around and make a second via the rear pinhole overlapping the normal and redscale images into a double exposure. Kind of fun and I kind of like kind of fun stuff. What else am I going to do while waiting for a drawbridge to raise?

Reality So Subtle 35R
Silberra Color 50

Tags:   Reality So Subtle pinhole redscale Double Exposure multiple exposures Victoria British Columbia Canada lensless film 35mm

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The Portland Winter Lights Festival is a pretty great idea. It was started a few years back as a means of coaxing people out of their homes on a dark, winter night. It has proven pretty successful. It also happens to usually fall right about my birthday each year, so it makes it easy to remember. This year may have been the busiest I have ever seen it. In past years you would get the map of the installations and often find knots of people or small crowds at some of the more popular attractions. We went on the opening Friday night this year and it was packed - not just at Pioneer Courthouse Square where the firedancers were about to perform and great gouts of flame kept shooting into the air, but at the World Trade Center complex as well which had several pretty cool pieces (my favorite being the tesseract).

Anyway, I had my Pentax 67 with the wide angle on it and a roll of Cinestill 800T that had been zapped through a couple airport x-rays and was waiting for something non-crucial to photograph.

Pentax 67
Cinestill 800T

Tags:   Pentax 67 Cinestill 800T Portland Oregon winter Winter Lights Festival PDX Pacific Northwest urban cityscape nighttime film Medium Format

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I don't need to go out in search of exotic locations, I often find them right under my nose. Well, not literally as this scene was on the fireplace mantel and several inches above my nose.

Zero Image 2000
Kodak Ektar 100

Tags:   Kodak Ektar Zero Image 2000 lensless pinhole film Medium Format at home

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