View allAll Photos Tagged RealitySoSubtle6X6,
For every shadow, there is a light shining. The trick then is to place yourself squarely in that light, to not stand in the shadow but in front of it, soaking up the warmth and brightness for all you are worth.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 pinhole
Kodak Ektar 100
If you by some weird logic or another to ask me if one could have too many pinhole images of the ocean, or even the Oregon coast specifically, I would probably answer with a question like; can the ocean have too many waves? Or can light fall on a sheer cliff too many times? Or can sand rearrange itself into hypnotic patterns often enough? Your answer to those would most likely match my answer to yours.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 pinhole / Kodak Ektar 100
To be purposefully vague or abstract, and to leave plenty of blank space for your own imaginations to fill; in a certain way much of the nature of the life can be summed up in moments such as this. I have experienced something similar while traveling. Even sitting in a cafe in Istanbul I can be struck at how on one level the world varies so much from place to place but at the same time so much of it is really the same no matter where you go. And if this makes little or no sense, that is ok, I am far from doing this feeling justice. So to balance I give you a very nice pinhole image to just enjoy if you so please.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 (centered pinhole) / Kodak Ektar 100
An exposure of Thor's Well made with a roll of Kodak Ektar that went through my Reality So Subtle 6x6 pinhole. This particular roll of film almost never came to fruition. I exposed 8 of the 12 frames on this particular trip down the coast and then for one reason or another, the camera ended up under the car seat where it was forgotten. By the time I realized I hadn't seen my RSS in a few days I didn't think to look under the car seats. So the camera sat there for a year, through the roasting summer months until recently found. By then I had forgotten completely what frames its exposed portions contained and I finished the roll off on a walk downtown. I didn't know quite what to expect from film that had sat around for a year, some of that time in a hot car but my hopes weren't too high. Nonetheless, when the roll was developed I was pretty surprised to see that there did not appear to be any base fogging and other than some weird purple splotchiness on a couple of frames the developed negatives looked pretty healthy.
Go film.
Reality So Subtle 6x6
Kodak Ektar 100
RealitySoSubtle 6X6 pinhole camera.
My images are © Copyrighted and All Rights Reserved. This image cannot be reproduced and/or used in any form of publication, print or the Internet without my written permission.
My photostream can never have too much pinhole in it. This pinhole image is from my first (or second) hike out to God's Thumb, which has become my favorite part of going to Lincoln City. Considering that Lincoln City is one of my less favorite areas on the Oregon Coast that may not seem like it is saying much, but in reality this hike is pretty awesome. Just beware the mud if you are going shortly after a rainstorm.
Reality So Subtle 6x6
Kodak Ektar
I have said this before, but I have no problem talking about it again because good things have a tendency to come back around... and around... and around.
I try not to be a photographer to do things. I mean, my goal isn't to take photos. It isn't even to make photos. It just so happens that in my normal course of photography that I make lots of pictures, but I see this as a side benefit. I am a photographer to be things, not do them. I want to be creative. I want to be inquisitive. I want to be attentive. I want to be in the moment and I want to be hopeful of the future. I want to be fascinated and awe struck at the myriad subtleties to life and the world. I want to be aware of the fact that no matter where I go or when I am that there are so many things that are different than where I came from... and there are also so many things that are the same. I want to enjoy the pattern that a leaf makes skittering across the road in a gust of wind. I want to look back in uncertain curiosity at that cat crouched in the windowsill watching me. I want to spend some portion of my life wondering about the coincidence of that red car parked in front of that red house with the bush full of red flowers right between them. Who thinks these things up, after all?
Because then, regardless of whether photos come of the moment or not, I get something vastly more rewarding.
Take revolving doors for a moment. This is a revolving door I have walked past countless times. It is a door I have barely noticed. I have never felt a shred of curiosity about it. I have never walked through... never been tempted to walk through it... never had a reason to be tempted to walk through it. But this is what photography helps me to be... curious, with reason and cause.
I am well aware that there is a vast gulf of things we are blind to in our daily lives, things we take for granted or fail to notice. I know I never can, but I want to notice it all. I want a revolving door to be as fascinating as an ancient church in France.
Anyway, that is what this image is really all about.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 / Kodak Ektar 100 / 1 trip around.
I love how a pinhole camera can turn seven seconds on a cloudy day at the beach in to a beautiful arrangement of lines and textures. Happy Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day everyone!
Neahkahnie Beach
Neahkannie/Manzanita, OR - June 2017
Reality So Subtle 6x6 Pinhole
Fuji Acros 100
7sec
From a recent trip out to central Oregon. There is nothing like big skies and big clouds and little, tiny human settlements.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 Dual Pinhole - Upper pinhole used
Silberra Ultima 100
RealitySoSubtle 6x6
Pinhole
Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100, 120 roll @100
Developed with: ID-11, 1+1, 9min00sec @21C
Epson V550 scan
I'm back, sort of... I think, mostly.
I didn't count the days but I am guessing it has been about two weeks of social media vacation (with the exception of one post). It was a good time off, though I admit it was difficult at first. But it got easier with time. There were several reasons I took this break, some of them personal, some professional, some curiosity. I will say that one reason I stuck to it, even when the temptation was to get back on was because of that temptation and because of the familiarity of the routine. It is so easy to fall into patterns and then not be aware of those patterns. So I wanted to step outside of them best I could and see if I really liked them or just thought I liked them because I was so used to them. This is a good perspective to take on creating art overall I think. Sometimes we do things in a certain way just because we are used to doing them that way and convince ourselves it is the best way to do them. Heck, this goes well beyond art actually, it is life in general. So I wanted to break my own cycles on here, if for just a short bit. And I have to admit, I feel the difference. I am not sure how often you will be seeing me on here from here on out. Maybe I will go back to my one a day average, but sometimes I was just doing that because a part of me was so used to doing it that way and felt like I had to keep it up. That part is largely quieted now so that my posts can come from other motivations. And we'll see how often those motivations speak up. I am not entirely sure myself.
Anyway, I wanted to write more this morning, about the sly and subtle effects of social media on our behavior as photographers but I am going to leave that for another post in a day... or two... or three... or so.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 pinhole / Kodak Ektar 100
Not too much to say today but wanted to get an image up to stay in practice, so to speak.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 / Kodak Ektar 100
Getting out more with the pinhole(s) of late. This one from my Reality So Subtle 6x6. I have photographed this spot on several occasions but never with this particular camera's point of view.
Reality So Subtle 6x6
Kodak Ektar 100
I recently got reacquainted with the Fremont Troll. I know I have seen this troll before but not since I first picked up a camera, despite countless trips to and through Seattle. But on a recent drive back from the North Cascades inspiration struck to stop by and pay the troll a visit. The days right before Halloween seemed as good a time of year as any to do so. As I imagine is usual, the troll had a bit of a crowd gathered around but one of the nice things about pinhole photography is the exposure lengths generally stretch long enough that if they don't wipe people out completely (being the transient beings we are) then they blur them into something I find interesting. In this case the two minute exposure did the former, making it seem like I had the troll all to myself, which I certainly did not.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 Dual Pinhole (top pinhole used)
Kodak Ektar 100 - but I was not too enamored of the color in this scene so monochrome it went.
I have been having several interesting internal q&a sessions on reality of late. It makes for some outwardly placid but inwardly lively moments. I find myself fascinated by how thin a veneer our concepts of reality make up. We think we know the world and then suddenly something happens to show us whole other ways of seeing, thinking or perceiving things around us. On a simpler level, pinhole photography reminds me of this every day. I see the city one way with the two eyes I was born with. Then I set up my pinhole camera with its wide, soft view of things and its ability to render not a fraction of a moment but a string of them and I am in another city... as seemingly as easy as that. We build our realities bit by bit, over the years and decades as we age, learn, collect experience and evolve as people. If we know how, we can step from one to another, even. Maybe not in the grand sci-fi sense of the notion but still certainly in a way that can dramatically change the world we are inhabiting.
Just some thoughts. I'm on lunch though so I have to save the rest for some other time.
Reality So Subtle (yes, I know. How appropriate a camera) 6x6 pinhole
Film unremembered, perhaps Rollei RPX 100
Reality So Subtle 6x6 pinhole
Kodak Ektar 100
We just started carrying these cameras at my work (Blue Moon Camera and Machine) and I am very satisfied to finally have these at work. Over the past 15 years I have lost count how many new pinhole photographers I have played a role in helping get started via the Zero Image cameras we sell there. Having yet another wonderful pinhole option is going to help that quest even more and I am excited for the new Reality So Subtle users that are bound to start popping up in Portland over the next few months. They are great pinhole cameras and the fellow who makes them is a pretty awesome guy as well.
I got away for an long weekend on Whidbey Island last week in order to teach a class in Coupeville. I was born in Seattle and have lived my whole life in the Pacific Northwest yet I had never been any farther south on Whidbey Island than Deception Pass. I enjoyed the island quite a bit and was left with the distinct impression of how much was still left to see despite how much we managed to see.
This stop at Deception Pass though was one of our first stops and one of the places I wanted to see again the most. I still have the bridge on my list of bridges to visit at night and photograph, but that did not happen this time around. On this day the beaches of Deception Pass were fairly full of fishermen and women as the salmon spawn was in effect. So I made a few images, both with pinhole and Flexbody of the stretch of beach with their clumps of fisherfolk.
Reality So Subtle 6x6
Kodak Ektar 100
I admit, framing a pinhole camera without a viewfinder can be a bit tricky. I get asked about it a lot. It is harder for me to describe how I go about composing these cameras than it is for me to do it. I guess the best, but one of the least helpful, answers I can give is to make a lot of photos and acquire a wealth of experience. The first be trick is to remember that these cameras are wide... sometimes super wide. That means you have to get much closer than you might realize. In fact, in terms of composition, this is where I often see new pinhole photographers struggle. They underestimate how far away their subjects will appear once photographed. So get close. That is the first step.
The second step then is a meticulous envisioning of the angles of view that the camera has. I often will take a minute or so to sight down the left and then the right side of the camera's view making sure that what I want and as little else as possible are hanging out on the edges. You can do this by picturing where the left and right edges of the negative are in the camera and then drawing invisible (or you can draw actual lines) from each edge crossing through the pinhole making and X with the pinhole at the intersection. What you are really interested in is the front part of that X, the V that is formed will tell you what will be in the frame.
Another helpful trick is to photograph the scene with another camera or your phone, so when the pinhole images come back, you can compare and contrast.
But there are few teachers like experience. Early on, I'd recommend shooting more and faster, burning a bit more money on film, but getting those results back a bit more quickly while the memories of the attempts are fresh. Sure, you'll discard more images this way but those images serve a purpose with each exposure theoretically making you a better photographer.
Reality So Subtle 6x6
Kodak Ektar 100
One habit I have gotten into whenever I travel to a different city is I tend to find one (or two) features of that city and really hone in on them. For example, during my first visit to Paris I spent a week finding every angle of the Eiffer Tower that I could. With New York it has been the Brooklyn Bridge. And during my most recent trip to San Francisco it became the Transamerica Pyramid. I find that having something like this to focus on helps me keep an eye out for peculiar angles I might have otherwise missed. Part of that is the process of photographing something you are so intent upon. For example, if my goal is to find as many different perspectives on this building as I can discover, I'll walk extra lengths around it, or I'll make sure to keep its location vaguely on my radar so that I'll glance down every alley that leads off in that direction just in case there is an unexpected view. The goal is not to produce a collection of images of this building (or that tower, or that bridge) but rather give me something in an unfamiliar city to pay attention to and become familiar with. And when you are a bit adrift in a strange town, visually overwhelmed with trying to figure out how to sort it all out photographically, I find that this technique can help give me solid creative ground to start to work from.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 pinhole
Kodak Ektar 100
A self-portrait of sorts. I am sure that including my shadow self in this landscape was not originally intended but that was just the way the lay of the light went and I was in no position to argue.
The newest member of my pinhole family, a Reality So Subtle 6x6, has quickly worked its way into a position of prominence. My problem is I have so many nice pinhole cameras, even if I never intended to own more than one. You would have thought a Zero Image would be enough, and it certainly is. I still love their cameras, I daresay they are perfect pinhole cameras. But then an Innova 6x9 came my way, followed by a RSS 6x17 and that by the RSS 6x6. I still have my Holga 6x12 too. And a scattering of homemade pinholes. Too many cameras, for sure. My RSS 6x6 though is fun. It is thinner than the Zero 6x6, which makes it a wider angle field of view, but I really love the offset pinhole (which this image was not made with).
Anyway, not really going anywhere with this off-the-cuff review of the camera, just thinking aloud because I have noticed that this camera has sneakily become THE pinhole camera in my bag currently. But fear not, I have loaned out my Innova to make sure that it continues to be used and a roll creeps through my 6x17 at specific moments (pano cameras are situational cameras anyway). I feel bad for my Zero Image cameras but the moment Blue Moon gets a fresh batch in with the filter threads and I can start attaching ND filters to my pinhole and doing two hour exposures my preferences will probably shift yet again.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 pinhole / Kodak Ektar 100
A little something for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day tomorrow. I hope to get out and make some images tomorrow. If so, maybe I (or at least my shadow) will make an appearance in one.
Fort Stevens State Park - Warrenton, OR - June 2017
Reality So Subtle 6x6 Pinhole
Fuji Acros 100 20sec
To adjust a Robert Capa quote to make it more applicable to pinhole photography: If your pinholes are good enough, you're not close enough.
Sometimes you have to get your head in the trees.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 - upper pinhole
Kodak Ektar 100
One of the things I like about pinhole photography is that the cameras are a great way of getting outside my own eyes. Not my own head, mind you, I am still there, but they let me see in so many different ways than I am not normally capable of seeing with the biological organs I was born with. There is the softness of vision native to pinhole. There is the extreme wide angle field of view thanks to the narrow focal distance. And of course there is an entire span of moments condensed into a single image. Add in the fact that my Reality So Subtle has that second, offset pinhole for an even more skewed angle of view and you end up with a simple little box that does such a wonderful job of showing you a different world.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 Dual Pinhole (upper pinhole used with severe forward tilt of camera)
Cinestill 50D
After all, light is the one flitting around the globe, sifting in through windows and tree branches, bouncing off buildings down alleys, skimming over the mountaintops and across the surface of the Earth on its daylong cycle. Somewhere along the way it found this empty section of the Pike Place Market in Seattle and illuminated it with all its golden hour glory. I was lucky to be there... I wasn't invited nor was I exactly crashing the party. But I enjoyed all the nice convergence nonetheless.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 pinhole (middle pinhole) / Kodak Ektar 100
Reality So Subtle 6x6 with the upper pinhole exposed
Kodak T-max 100
Kodak HC-110 B
In November 2015 I was lucky to attend a five days workshop with the brilliant Bruce Percy, The Art of Adventure. It was a couple of days that really took my breath away with stunning nature scenery which was quite hard to catch in a way that for me made sense. I had a feeling that I should go there with only a couple of my pinhole cameras, but I really didn’t dare to, I just had to bring my trusty old Hasselblad with me.
But when all films finally was scanned, it was the pinhole rolls that spoke to me. As you all know by now, I’m the kind of person that just have to let my images rest for a while, to be able to see what I like and what I don’t like, so therefore it has gone some time….. ;-)
The Outer Hebrides, Isle of Harris, is definitely a place I would love to go back to, anytime, with a whole box of film with me…..
I just have to start with a for me new pinhole camera, the Reality So Subtle 6×6, which one impressed me a lot!
I hope you like this too!
I was at the state fair last week to give a pinhole lecture so as was appropriate I largely only used my pinhole camera while there. Of late I have been fighting my urge to take more cameras along and to instead limit myself to one or two cameras whenever I go places. It is much more liberating. So I had my Reality So Subtle with my and a small Gorillapod. It was largely all I needed.
I met this character on the midway somewhere but everything that came out of his mouth was utter rubbish, so I made his portrait and quickly moved on.
Reality so Subtle 6x6 / Kodak Ektar 100
Camera: Reality So Subtle 6X6
Lens: Pinhole
Film: Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100
Developer: Xtol
Scanner: Epson V600
Photoshop: Curves, Healing Brush (spotting)
Cropping: None
No man may be an island, but if I could be one...
Reality So Subtle 6x6 pinhole / Kodak Ektar 100 originally.
More pinhole fun, this time from the New Season's parking lot. I just went for some groceries, but true to form I had a camera with me.
Reality So Subtle 6x6 pinhole
Kodak Ektar
The pinhole camera was clamped to the carousel's bench, pointing to a little boy sitting on the opposite side. Unfortunately the boy could not keep still, so his outlines are barely visible on the picture.
I haven't posted in a couple of days as I have been kept pretty busy, but I'm popping on here to give a shout out to Photo Club PDX, a local photography club here in Portland, that is organizing a photo outing up to the Seattle Public Library at the end of this month (Saturday, July 27th to be exact). They have actually rented out an hour of the library's time after hours, so they are going to get to go in and have full run of the building, tripods and all. Most trips up to Seattle that I make, I try to include a stop here. The building has some amazing architecture, it is immense both in size and its collection of books, I can easily spend hours wandering it's sloped ramp that runs from one floor to the next like I am on an Escher stairwell to infinity.
I haven't given Photo Club PDX its due on here, which is really my fault and the distracted nature under which I have been squeezing these posts in. But they are about a year and a half old now and have built a really cool community of photographers, young and old, veteran and new, landscapers and portraitists. It's a good group and I have been a part of it since the beginning watching them grow month by month.
Anyway, this outing is directed mostly toward club members, but is open to non-members and the public as well. There is a group limit, and non-members have a fee of $30 (it costs a decent amount to rent a library after hours, after all) but considering the opportunity, it will be well worth it and a lot of fun. So if this sounds interesting to you, hit up Photo Club's website (www.photoclubpdx.com/events/seattle-library-outing) and get signed up. If you know any Portland or Seattle area photographers that might be interested, let them know as well!
Reality So Subtle 6x6 (upper pinhole)
Fuji Acros?