Day Six and Final at Penland

On our last day we had show and tell to display our work from the week for others. People were interested in how we took such pictures with a variety of cans. We also had music. Here’s our teacher Pinky playing cello.

Here is a link to all my best photos from the week in a slide show. Note that there are 101 photos (and these are culled out from many, many more).

This was a fabulous week for me. It was not restful, but it was energizing. I met a lot of great people. I learned a lot of interesting things that stretched my creativity and taught me how to look at things differently. One really does not have too many opportunities in their life to be totally immersed in something without their normal distractions. I need to keep my eye out for future programs like this.

Night in Asheville

Tonight we went to Asheville to a gallery reception for a friend of Pinky. Here’s a link to the online gallery. It was rainy and I took some cool pictures in the rain.

On our way back to Penland, we stopped at a drugstore because Melanie had been asked Louis all week to cut her hair, and he needed a scissors to do so. Here’s a photo of him convincing her that it is worth it to buy a $20 scissors rather than a $10 one.

Day Five at Penland

I finished my collage in the morning. It definitely looked better with a photo layered on top. After lunch I decided that I wanted to shoot some more pinhole pictures. The light was changing so I had that challenge again. I also was looking for different subjects. I tried a couple people shots, including re-taking a photo of a girl named Kim in the ceramics program, but the below shot of a rundown building that came out better.

Here is a link to my Flickr Slide Show of all my pinhole photos, including the ones from the beginning of the week.

Day Four at Penland

It was a cold and drizzly day today, so we worked in the studio on our projects. I shot tools and scrap metal to make clip art for Xerox transfer. I put more photos on metal and wood using lazertran. At the urging of Doug, I began work on a big collage using found images from magazines, sheet music and other random bits of paper. Doug described these layered collages as representing the past, present and future.

I also gathered scrap metal from behind the metal studio.

At the end of the day when I declared my collage done, Doug suggested that I print one of my pinhole images large enough to cover the collage to add another layer. Collage is not really my thing, and I was here to try new things, and I said sure. I printed it out, so I could trim the pages and apply to my collage in the morning.

Day Three at Penland

Last night as I was going to sleep, the wind was blowing through the trees, rattling the windows. The gate on an old building across the way was creaking loudly.

I did not have a chance to write much on my computer today, so this post (and those following) will be short. Today we met visiting artist Doug Baulos, an instructor from University of Alabama-Birmingham. He explained and demo’d many alternate print and transfer processes, like xerox transfer, tape transfer, gel transfer, gesso transfer, gel skin, caulk skin, lazertran and gold leaf. He also showed us the basics of make simple maze books that fold in on themselves. He told us the original Gutenberg Bible was made of sheepskin and used 32 sheep.

The process that I gravitated most towards was lazertran. This is decal material that can go through an inkjet printer and lets you put the on anything. I put images on different kinds of metal. I also was interested in xerox transfer, where you run something through a copy machine, preferably line art, and imprint it on another surface by treating the xerox and rubbing the back of it to make the toner come off.

Doug also told us about Mexican street cameras where Street Camera a photographer would shoot a paper negative of his subject and develop the picture inside camera using a miniature darkroom. When the negative was ready, he would hold it in front of the lens and photograph, making a positive image that he would develop inside the camera. He would hand the positive print to the subject and the negative would pile up, eventually finding their way to junk shops.

At every meal there is a variety of food. There are meat choices, vegetarian choices, vegan choices, and even alternative choices in the kitchen. Those are things like wheat free, or garlic free.

Day Two at Penland

Today was April Fool’s Day and I didn’t even notice. Penland is described as an immersive environment for learning and creating, and it really is true. People spend all day in their studios working on their projects, or in our case, learning new techniques and processes to try out in the field. After dinner, many people go back to their studios to work. I was looking for places to hang out and be social, and there really weren’t any. Most of the students are here on 2 month concentration studies, and there are just 2 one-week classes going on right now. The summer is very different, with a totally different level of commitment, and more social activity.

People in other studios wake up and don’t need to concern themselves with the weather each day. In our pinhole photography class, it is all about the weather. We get the best exposures in bright sunlight. Overcast, but bright is okay, although there is not the contrast of sunlight and shadows. And rain is never any good for pinhole photography.

This morning it was overcast with a forecast of rain. It actually wound up clearing and was a nice day. In the morning we went to the Energy Xchange, an artist’s collective where they harness energy from the nearby landfill. I used this opportunity to shoot pinhole pictures with my old film camera outfitted with a commercial pinhole body cap. It was easier to shoot with this that a coffee can and a black bag (to change the film). After I get home I will process these to see how they come out.

In the afternoon I started using film in my pinhole camera, rather than the paper from the day before. My exposure in bright sunlight was 10 seconds. See the post below for an example of a good picture from this day. Just like yesterday, after the film dried, I scanned it into Photoshop to make a positive from a negative and adjust the exposure.

Today I went from one extreme of anal retentive to another. After scanning my pinhole pictures into the computer, I straightened them and added black bars to indicate full frame, but I made sure the black bars were made out of the edges of the pictures. This is an actual indication that this is a full frame. I didn’t mind the imperfections of the bars, but I wasn’t crazy about the shadows and other remnants of the scanning process.

Once I started correcting the bars and removing the shadows, I was bothered that the images were created from paper that wasn’t cut straight. This made me correct the bars and make them straight. I noticed some imperfections in the photo, including tape marks, so I needed to move the black bars in even further to cover the marks. Once I started cropping the photos, it was only one short hop, skip and a jump to crop the photos straight with no black bars, and put standard-width, solid-black bars on each photos.

I went back and fixed all my photos from the yesterday. I even went back and re-uploaded the corrected photos to flickr and my blog.

More Photos from Penland

I have uploaded more photos today from my class and stay at Penland. The links below are the same as yesterday, as I have added new photos to the same slide shows.

Yesterday I was shooting paper negatives in my pinhole camera, while today I was shooting ortho film negatives. I also tried my pinhole cap for my 35mm film camera and shot regular black and white film in that. I will process that when I get home, so I can get that back as scans and negatives. We don’t have the chemicals to process film, because that is not part of this class.

I was also taking pictures of people with my pinhole camera. This is a challenge because you don’t always know what’s in the shot. I had some pretty good luck.

Here is a link to pinhole photos only.

And here’s a link to all my photos from Penland (including the pinhole photos).

Day One at Penland

I woke up around 5:30 this morning when my neighbor, who I share a bathroom with, got up to shower. I never really got back to sleep. I finally rolled out of bed around 6:00 and showered. Breakfast is not until 8:00, so after getting dressed, in layers, I got out my laptop.

Before I left home, I copied my picture archive onto my laptop, so I would have access to all my digital images in class. I have about 10,000 images, but I suspect many of them are not worth having with me. There are lots of kid photos, which have sentimental value, but other than that, it is hard to say. There are really only a handful of photos that I would do anything with, but you got to have options. I just don’t ever delete photos.

I am really excited about this class. As I have made my transition to digital, I am really interested to go back to the basics of photography (through the pinhole process) and thinking about things differently. I need to shake up my creativity, and the lack of control of pinhole may be just the thing. I have always enjoyed the darkroom, so I am also looking forward to exploring other printing processes. I like the idea of taking a clean image and messing it up with a physical process. Many of these techniques are now easily replicated in photoshop, but it just isn’t the same.

We started the day by making pinhole cameras. I used a Cafe Bustelo coffee can, so all my pinhole photos were powered by coffee. A pinhole camera works on the same basic principle of light as your eye and any camera. The light reflects off your subject, travels in a straight line, through the hole onto the photographic paper or film in the camera. The photography side of things are based on the size of the hole (aperture) and distance to the film or paper. From these you calculate the f-stop and exposure. This gives you a general ballpark, and you shoot test exposures to determine the actual exposure for your camera.

Coffee Can Pinhole Camera

Most exposures are calculated for bright sunshine. This gives you the sharpest photos. It was cloudy this first day, so our exposure time was longer. I was shooting paper negatives and my exposure time was about 20 seconds.

Each camera needs to be light tight, but you also need to be able to load and unload your paper or film. This is done in the darkroom (or a dark room). After loading your camera, set the camera down in front of your subject, uncover the pinhole for the determined amount of time, and cover it again. Then it’s back to the darkroom to process your image. If you are doing this in the field, or while traveling, you need a black changing bag and somewhere to keep your exposed negatives until you return. Pinky, our instructor, told us about her trips to Mexico and her darkroom setups in a closet including pitchers with her chemicals, rather than the more traditional approach of trays.

Camera in Position

First Pinhole Picture

My exposures were pretty consistent in the morning while it was overcast, but the light was constantly changing in the afternoon. This made it hard to get a decent exposure. One of the first things you learn about pinhole cameras is that you must relinquish control. Until you understand how the camera frames things, you cannot control the composition of the photos. Until you learn the exposure times (based on light and paper), you can’t just change a setting. And finally, there is no focus, but pinhole have a wide depth of field, so the foreground and the background are in focus.

So the afternoon was very frustrating as I struggled with overexposed and underexposed pictures. And you only know this after processing the paper negative and looking at it in the light. This means that it is many 10-15 minutes between shots, so the light changes from one shot to the next. I was also having a lot of trouble framing the photos the way I wanted them. But once I remembered that this was part of the point, I needed to just keep trying and accept what I got. I changed paper sizes to get a more panoramic look, and this completely changed what got in the frame.

As the afternoon was winding down, we were all getting pretty tired. I planned to take one more photo before calling it a day. I had been trying to get a panoramic shot of the mountains, and I just couldn’t get it. I was going to be done whether the photo worked or not, and due to luck, karma, or just the mountain air, I got a great image. See it in the post below.

Photos from Penland

I am currently at the Penland School of Crafts taking a pinhole photography class. Here is one on the photos that I shot today and scanned.

Here is a link to pinhole photos only.

And here’s a link to other photos from Arrival Day and Day 1 at Penland (including the pinhole photos). More later.

By the way, the food is fabulous.

Arrival at Penland

I arrived at Penland around 5:00. It is a beautiful rustic campus in the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina. Here is a description of classes from the Penland website:

Each summer, the school offers 98 one- or two-week classes in books and paper, clay, drawing and painting, glass, iron, metals, photography, printmaking, textiles, wood, and other media.

In the spring and fall, Penland has seven classes that run for eight weeks. These long sessions, called Concentrations, are unlike anything else offered in craft: almost as long as a college semester with the focused intensity of the single-subject workshop. We also offer a few one-week classes in the spring and fall.

Tonight we had our introductory class. We met our instructor, an older woman named Pinky Bass from Alabama. She is full of energy and lots of stories. She showed us a variety of pinhole cameras she has made from things like oatmeal boxes, coke cans, a purse, and even a hollowed out bible. This is just the sort of creative environment I need to be immersed in. Looking forward to a great week.