Experiment: pinhole camera toss

Pinhole camera toss (atomic)

I think the camera toss phenomenon, started by Ryan Gallagher (also see his Flickr stream), is really cool. The idea is that you set your camera for a relatively long exposure in a dark place with a nifty arrangement of lights, and throw the camera in the air while the shutter is open. The results can be jaw-dropping.

I decided to give it a go while I was out shooting pinholes the other day. At f/235, I figured I’d better do it outdoors in bright sun to have any chance of getting anything on film. As it turns out, the sun was the only thing that actually turned up. This is on Fuji Astia 100F cross-processed in C-41, shot at about ISO 25, with multiple tosses in the air per exposure.

I may use this one for holiday cards this year (if I send any), as I think it looks a bit like a wrapped present:

Pinhole camera toss (gift)

Also check out the first known pinhole toss photos ever, by Alan Cooper aka alspix, using his famous matchbox pinhole camera: photo 1, photo 2.

See also: Ryan Gallagher’s blog post about these and alspix’ photos, Tarja Trygg’s pinhole solargraphy project (which I thought I posted about before but apparently didn’t… check it out, it’s really, really cool)

4 thoughts to “Experiment: pinhole camera toss”

  1. Far out! Are these random tosses? Or did you have a pattern (looks like a pattern). And for atomic – it looks like you swung the camera at the end of a rope/string. Or something like that.

    Good going – very creative.

  2. Stormy, I went for patterns, spinning on different axes at different speeds per toss (of which there were several per exposure). And thanks! But all credit goes to Ryan, I doubt this would have occurred to me had he not done it first, and alspix did it the first pinhole toss. But I think I’m going to do some more, though probably with a pinholga—the metal shutter and counter window door handles stick out and hurt when you catch a Zero 69!

    Brett, I will do if I can find the time!

  3. Out-freakin’-standing. These are sublime and that second one is a sure-fire winner. There’s a message in there somewhere about the sun being the only thing the camera captured during these, but I’m too tired to sort it out. Hope to see more of these.

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