Sauvie Island

World Pinhole Photography Day (on 4x5 film!)

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Well, it looks like another World Pinhole Photography Day has come and gone. I certainly can’t be the only one when I say that it is hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that it is currently the year 2023. Where on earth did the last three or four years go? I suppose COVID happened. That accounts for some of the whiplash. But still… I guess I’m just quickly hitting that age when time speeds up and the world around you moves faster than you’d like it to.

Photographed with an Ilford Titan Pinhole camera and Ilford HP5 large format film.

Perhaps it is for that reason that pinhole photography feels more important than ever in my life, and why I made it a point to go out and make some pinhole photographs on World Pinhole Photography Day. I’m no different than most people in that I spend the vast majority of my day in front of a computer. I even use that term “computer” very loosely. In reality I spend my day in front of a laptop with three screens, two smart phones, and several televisions pumping out 24 hour cable news. It’s mind numbing to say the least. Would I prefer to have far less screen time? Absolutely yes! But alas, I need a paycheck just like everyone else.

The simplicity of pinhole photography feels like a natural reaction to that unfortunate fact. It is my opportunity to slow it all down. To turn off every single screen. To work with a basic tool that requires slow and methodical interactions. Measure the light. Make an exposure calculation with my notebook. Compose. Open the “shutter”. Wait. Sometimes wait for a long time. Breath the air. Take in the silence. Repeat. It’s a refreshing experience to say the least. There are times when it actually feels like magic.

This year I decided to take out my Ilford Titan Pinhole 4x5 camera loaded up with Ilford HP4 film. I’ve been really happy with that camera ever since I bought it. While it might not be the most elegant looking of cameras, in practice it operates perfectly. It’s nice and light weight which means more room in my pack for film backs. Anyone who has ever worked with sheet film out in the field can understand the value of keeping the weight you carry with you to a minimum. Plus I like the focal length quite a bit. Equivalent to about 20mm on a 35mm camera the angle is nice and wide which is great considering composition is a guessing game with pinhole cameras.

Exposure time on this image was about 25 seconds metered at ISO 400. Negative was developed in Rodinal with a ratio 1:50 at 20C for 11 minutes.

When Figures and Landscapes Merge Together

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Lately I’ve been far more interested in landscape and nature photography over figure studies and portraits. I suppose it is normal for any artist to go through phases in their work and I’m certainly no exception. There is something very appealing in this (sort of) post COVID world about taking a camera outdoors and just absorbing the silent stillness of nature. It’s nice to take my time with very little or absolutely no agenda at all and getting through a roll of film over the course of several hours as opposed to several minutes, which is the norm when I’m working with people.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Rollei RPX ISO 100 film in Medium Format.

I suppose it was inevitable when I was making this creative transition in my brain that I would create some images that merged the landscape and a nude together. I managed to find this spot at the perfect time. The weather was still fairly warm yet there was plenty of overcast and cloud cover to make the lighting very soft and even. Basically the kind of conditions the Pacific Northwest is famous for, though the extreme weather we’ve been having the past year or so has made less common. A tree on Sauvie Island had broken apart during a recent storm and made for a great piece of architecture for the model to pose on.

Looking at the final edited image, I feel confident that taking several steps back and capturing the entire scene was the right call here.

Reticulation With Black and White Film

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The weather here in the Pacific Northwest has been incredibly hot the last week or so. Heat waves are not my favorite thing, in part because it can make working with analogue photography quite difficult. Not only is it unbearable to go outside to make actual photographs, but it can also make the back end darkroom process a bit of a pain to work with. In my case, the difficulty can be the reticulation effect with film.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford HP5 120 film. Film was developed in cold water and rinsed later in hot water to get the reticulation effect.

What is film reticulation you might ask? In the world of emulsions and film, reticulation is simply the science of distorting the emulsion layer to create an overall pattern in the film. The single most important ingredient to produce reticulation is extreme changes in temperatures of developing solutions. In other words, because film emulsion is based with silver, hot and cold temperatures will make the emulsion expand and contract creating a textured effect.

When the weather is incredibly hot, the water will come out of my tap in spurts ranging from hot to cold at random. Normally I develop my film at an even 68 degrees. But during heat waves, the water will vary from about 60 degrees to 85 degrees at will.

Now, if I wanted to I could use ice cubes and steady water baths to keep my temperature consistent. In most cases that is what I do. However, sometimes I will just embrace what mother nature put in front of me and run with it, crossing my fingers that the effect will work out in my favor. I think that was the case here as the foggy misty morning where this photograph was taken compliments the reticulation effect quite well.

So hey it worked out!

As always with film however, you just never know and letting the reticulation effect take control in the development process can be risky.