Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day 2020

[Nick Dvoracek]

Since Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day and the Pinhole Day Gallery has always been primarily a virtual event we will continue to observe it on it’s traditional date, the last Sunday in April, this year on the 26th.

We’re saddened that the public events and gatherings that introduce new people to the magic of pinhole won’t be happening this year. This will have to be a return to our roots, as Zernike Au stated in his original suggestion in 2001, as “a day for pinholers around the world.”

In light of the difficulty the current crisis will make for film development in commercial labs and community dark rooms, we will extend the submission date to include your photograph in this year’s gallery until June 30th. If you can offer developing and safely exchange film, negatives and scans to others in your community, that would help people without those resources to participate.

We hope this will provide a small amount of normalcy during this extraordinary year, and we’ll look forward to seeing what the world looks like through a pinhole on April 26 at http://pinholeday.org

 

[Roger Thoms]

Nick, thanks for posting, WPPD is coming up fast. Time to start planning, I’m thinking some kind of still life around the house. Last couple of years I was fortunate to be in Phoenix AZ and was able to participate with Art Intersections event. I’ll miss Art Intersections event as they are a great bunch of people and I thoroughly enjoyed the one’s I attended. Still looking forward to participating solo this year.

Roger

 

[DWThomas]

Yes! It's on my calendar. I usually like to record some of our near by 18th C historic sites, but have no idea what general conditions will be here by then (number of Covid-19 cases in this county are up 372% from a week ago!). In any event, there's table toppery or our two acres of semi-wooded property to play around on if we're really seriously locked down.

 

[NedL]

Thanks Nick.
Glad you're here at photrio.

 

[mooseontheloose]

Thanks for the reminder! I was just thinking about it the other day as I have a plan to sort and catalog all my camera gear - I'm particularly interested in working with some cameras (like pinhole) that I don't usually have much time for when travelling. Now that I'm stuck in place for a while, it opens up a lot of possibilities.

 

[mooseontheloose]

Debated going out today as it looked like it was going to rain, but the rain held off so I headed over to my favourite photography spot to shoot some pinholes with my RSS 6x6. I like this area (the Keage aqueduct and Nanzenji Temple) because it is open 24/7, has a variety of subjects to shoot and I can use my tripod (although today I noticed no tripod signs for the first time). It is a secondary tourist attraction in Kyoto, which means it's never overly busy (outside of hanami/fall foliage seasons) but today it was empty due to the requests to stay home (!) - only a small handful of people came by in the hour or two I was there. Will hopefully get the film developed tonight or tomorrow.

 

[mcfitz]

Rachelle, that looks like a wonderful place to do any kind of photography, but especially pinhole, today.

I made several exposures on two different cameras, of a sort of still life. Indoors, outdoors is inhospitable here and the weather was lousy.
I'm glad this is going on despite the circumstances, and there is a later date for uploading.

 

[Black Dog]

Well after weeks of blue skies here in Cumbria, it's been cloud all the way here today-anyway I went for a walk in the woods with my Zero Image 4x5 and hopefully I got something. Pinhole can always be a bit random!

 

[Pioneer]

4 exposures on Harman Direct Positive Paper today. I'm never quite sure how they will turn out but I'll try to get them developed today so I'll know before the day is out anyway. Just got this box of film from a fellow Photrio member who was kind enough to ship me a box he wasn't using.

Used my little Ilford 4x5 Obscura. I do like that camera but I don't use it enough. I guess that is what this day is all about, to remind us to try out pinhole.

 

[Donald Qualls]

By the time I was ready to go out, north central North Carolina had fairly strong wind and cycled between sun and cloud shadows. My tripod is heavy enough wind isn't a big issue, and I got what I believe were three good exposures with a pinhole mounted in a replacement shutter on my Zeiss Ikon Ideal plate camera (ca. 1927). Using the pinhole at the normal infinity focus position gives f/256, and with 1990s vintage Tri-X 320 Professional (TXT) rated at EI 100 due to age, allowing 3x for reciprocity failure, I gave 15-20 seconds. We'll see -- with luck, I can get the negatives developed this evening.

 

[rubbernglue]

I was out shooting some, had built me another sheet film pinholer with two days to go, this time for 13x18cm (eq. 5x7") which turned out fantastic with no light leaks from first test-shot! My last-years camera (4x5") still leaks some though and I cant seem to make it tight whatever I do.

 

[Roger Thoms]

Well we broke out today specifically for WPPD, and had a great time. I was accompanied by Leigh (my lovely photo assistant) which was a great help since I'm not walking all that well. We spent most of our time in Golden Gate Park which is close to our house and despite being a little crowded we found plenty of quite spots. I had the Harman Titan and an assortment of expired 8x10 film from various Craigslist purchases and managed 11 exposures. A few subjects I shot in both color and black and white. Anyway it was a lot of fun.

Roger

 

[DWThomas]

Alas, it was dreary and rainy all day, perhaps not that unusual for WPPD, but combining that with "distancing," a try at tabletop seemed reasonable.

At such close range my little pegs for sighting scene coverage didn't work as well as I expected, but since all was contained in nearby space, I moved the camera back and shot another. If other projects go according to plan tomorrow I may get to doing a contact print.

Have been using Fuji HR-T in my homebrew 8x10 camera, makes a nice size contact!

A glimpse at the setup:

The negatives drying:

Wooo hooo -- I see images!

 

[Roger Thoms]

Nice job Dave, those negatives look nice, really hard to beat for contact printing.

Roger

 

[NedL]

Thanks to Rachelle for posting here ( and that's an awesome place! )... I'm embarrassed to say I completely forgot all about it but her post this morning reminded me. I made a fun image on FP-100c instant film just here on my property... will scan in the next couple days and post it here and on the WPPD site. ( It's a self-portrait of me doing what I was doing today.... )

 

[Donald Qualls]

My pinhole film is in the developing tank, but I ran into a snag -- apparently I hadn't read the fine print; the Yankee Cut Film Daylight Tank requires 48 ounces of developer for 9x12 cm film, and I only have 32 ounces of Df96 mixed up. I've got another bag of the dry chemicals, but I don't have a two quart container to hold the combined developer. I'd have solved the problem last night, eventually, but with also getting the house ready for a floor repair in the kitchen, followed by my darkroom work (wall in, install a door that can be made light tight, plumb in a laundry tub sink). I decided I'd be better to wait at least until the kitchen sink is available (which will also give me a chance to locate an airtight 2 liter container to hold a double batch of Df96). Probably Wednesday or later, then, perhaps another week until my darkroom is in a usable state. Speaking of which, I need to go get some primer and paint, if the big box store isn't sold out of them...

 

[NedL]

Here's me on my tractor getting ready to mow ( staying at home and not going on my usual WPPD excursions... )
At the WPPD site it will be here when it's posted. ( wow, only number 570, usually it's a higher number if you wait a day or two to post )

I should have raised the loader up higher so that you could see its arm all the way down to the front of the tractor, oh well

 

[narsuitus]

Originally, I had planned on using a black & white pinhole image shot with a 6x7 roll film back for my 4x5 inch view camera. However, I must have loaded the back incorrectly because all the images were blank. Thank goodness I was able to submit one of my digital test shots.

http://pinholeday.org/gallery/2020/index.php?id=201


Pinhole Image by Narsuitus, on Flickr

 

[DWThomas]

Alrighty -- last night I contact printed two shots, deciding that the original shot, while closer than intended, did nicely cover detail of the trunk, including two aerial roots which magically appeared in the past year, so submitted it to the WPPD folks. My modest move-back for the last shot was over zealous, remarkable what a 100º or so diagonal field of view covers!
Exposures around four minutes with the f/300 pinhole, developed in HC110 1+63 for 3:30; scans from prints on Ilford MGIV RC.
Hey, it was a fun diversion from the depressing day-to-day reality!

I'm at #638 on the WPPD site.

 

[Roger Thoms]

Processed my first 3 negatives today, only had time to do a quick scan of one. Probably not my best image, but still exciting because it was the first color processing I’ve ever done. Harman Titan 8x10, Portra 160NC, Cinestill C41, Stearman Press SP-8x10.

Still have E6 and B&W to process.

Roger

 

[DWThomas]

Processed my first 3 negatives today, only had time to do a quick scan of one. Probably not my best image, but still exciting because it was the first color processing I’ve ever done. Harman Titan 8x10, Portra 160NC, Cinestill C41, Stearman Press SP-8x10.

Still have E6 and B&W to process.

Wow! You really got into it! That's impressive, I hope to see the rest.

 

[Roger Thoms]

I wouldn’t normally shoot 8x10 color negatives in my pinhole camera, but I bought some holders that came loaded with Portra. 4 holders with 5 sheets already exposed, certainly didn’t want to send the 10 year expired film out for development at $10+ a sheet, so I figured it would be fun to process the film myself. I processed one of the exposed sheets for practice before doing my pinhole shots. I have to give credit to Nodda Duma for inspiring me with the color 8x10 images he process with the SP-8x10.

Roger

 

[Donald Qualls]

Yep, a big chrome is a very impressive sight, and a big color negative, scanned or contact printed, nearly as much so. Now that I can afford to spend some money on photography, I want to shoot some 4x5 chromes -- and I can buy an E-6 kit for less than it costs to send them out, including postage...

 

[Roger Thoms]

I have some 8x10 Astia expired 1998 that I shot on WPPD day, I’ll process that next, then of course I shot B&W too. Looking forward to the big chromes, but really B&W is where my heart is at. Still fun to play with a little color every once in a while.

Roger

 

[Black Dog]

I have some 8x10 Astia expired 1998 that I shot on WPPD day, I’ll process that next, then of course I shot B&W too. Looking forward to the big chromes, but really B&W is where my heart is at. Still fun to play with a little color every once in a while.

Roger

It is isn't it? Good effort BTW.