moominsean writes on his excellent blog, moominstuff:
I’ve been wanting to turn my Holga into an underwater camera for awhile, and finally got around to building a waterproof casing. I spent many hours on the design and implementation, making sure the seal was absolute, as you can see…
Check out his sweet home-built underwater Holga enclosure and sample photos—this thing has to be seen to be believed!
Check out Eben Ostby‘s plans for a 4×5 large format sheet film developing tube. View a larger, more legible version of the plans and construction notes on the photo’s page on Flickr.
Kait Jarbeau built this "coneographic" camera. I can’t wait to see what comes out of it!
Check out this contact printing with blueprint (diazo) paper and Windex window cleaner tutorial by Mark Gutierrez. Cool results, no darkroom or enlarger required, dead easy!
Read instructions at Instructables
Thanks to Seth for the heads-up!
Photo by Mark Gutierrez, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license
Fucking hell, Polaroid are killing yet another range of films! This time it’s the 80 series (84, 87, 88, and 89) 3.25 x 3.38-inch peel-apart pack film—the stuff you shoot in Holgaroids, supershooters, and squareshooters. Each product page bears the following message:
Please be advised that Polaroid will be discontinuing 8[x] film within the last 3 months of 2006 due to the phasing out of components used in the production of this film.
I guess it’s time to figure out how to hack a full-frame back as a Holgaroid replacement… hopefully the 3.25 x 4.25-inch 600 series pack film isn’t going anywhere for a while. Although, with Time-Zero and type 85 pos/neg discontinued, who the hell knows?
Sven Hafner is starting an international photographic fine print swap. He writes:
Hi everyone!
I want to invite you to join ThePrintSwap project. Do you like to see real prints of other photographers ? You can go to exhibitions, you can buy prints and books… Why dont exchange prints ? The idea is not really new but we revitalize it here with the tools of the internet.
This is a complete non-commercial project as platform to pair photographers from all over the world every 2–3 months to exchange fine prints.
The idea is not to send trash images (sorry for being so direct) to someone else, you process the image and print in a way as if you would sell it to someone and your (random) partner can appreciate your art skills and craft. Please read more at www.ThePrintSwap.org.
We are still in the startup phase and gathering photographers (around 20 joined at the time I write this).
Check it out at www.ThePrintSwap.org
Thought for the weekend:
To be honest, most of my pictures suck. The saving grace of that admission is that most of your pictures suck, too. How could I possibly know such a thing? Because most of everybody’s pictures suck, that’s how. I’ve seen Cartier-Bresson’s contact sheets, and most of his pictures sucked. One of my teachers said that it was an epiphany for him when he took a class from Garry Winogrand and learned that most of Winogrand’s exposures sucked. It’s the way it is.
— Mike Johnston, of 37th Frame, The Online Photographer, etc. fame, in his essay,The Magic Bullet
So how do you deal with most of your art sucking? The insanely excellent book, Art & Fear: Observations on the Peril (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland, has some outstanding thoughts on the subject. If you like that one, chase it with Orland’s follow-up, The View From The Studio Door: How Artists Find Their Way In An Uncertain World. I keep meaning to write reviews of both of them but never seem to find the time to do it properly. For now I’ll just say that they’re the best investments in artmaking I’ve ever made.
This workshop is a crash course in pinhole photography. Students will make a pinhole camera, make exposures, process the negatives, contact print the negatives. In addition, a presentation of historical and contemporary works will expand student awareness of the vast potential pinhole offers. The current resurgence of pinhole photography in contemporary art makes this class a good choice for all, from the mildly curious to the highly adventurous.
The workshop, run by photographer Bruce McKaig, is on Saturday, 16 September, 2006 from 10:00am–1:00pm at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, 545 7th Street, S.E., Washington, DC, US. Cost is $65.
The Capitol Hill Arts Workshop has several other photography classes available.
Via Pinhole Visions
Check out Laura Kicey’s work on her Web site and on Flickr.
