I had a conversation with my friend, John Harrison, last night. One of the topics was camera obscura.
So to celebrate the long overdue conversation, here is a video of the creation of a camera obscura, a simple demonstration, and a link to wikipedia for some background information.
Here is the wikipedia article
I’m a film guy, but wet plate collodion photography is very interesting. Here are a a couple videos by Quinn Jacobson.
The Wet Plate Collodion Process
Making A Wet Plate Collodion Portrait
Here are more of his videos. Quinn Jacobson on YouTube. It looks like he’s producing a DVD about this. I might have to buy it. I have a great appreciation for anyone who keeps older processes alive in the face of expediency.
Matt Bender is my niece’s husband. So, I have to admit some bias here.
Matt is an accomplished Polaroid photographer, so he deserves mention.
His Polaroid pictures show the design skills he learned as an artist.
As an artist for the Missouri Botanical Garden, he created designs for the Japanese Festival, Train Show, other special events, mailers, and other marketing collateral. He produced some very memorable work there, but has moved on to private enterprise. Simply put, if you saw ads or fliers for the Missouri Botanical Garden, you likely saw his work.
I can’t show it to you here, but as you can imagine the artwork for his own wedding was phenomenal. The importance of the occasion showed in his attention to detail.
He is a very good graphic artist and Polaroid photographer.
Today’s site is f295.org
It’s focus has primarily been pinhole photography. Don’t let that scare you if you’re more of a lens person, there’s plenty here to love including some first rate photography like this panoramic shot.
As you can tell, some of these people have very interesting formats for their cameras. There is an air of experimentation here that I love. Their interests may take them to using homemade cameras or simply adding to a conventional cameras with a lens board with a hole in them.
There is a very good forum dealing with, yep, pinhole photography, but also zone plate photography and Hand Crafted, Historic Process, and Non-Conventional Images.
If that weren’t enough, they have forums devoted to both black and white and color within pinhole and zone plate photography. So you don’t have to weed through those pesky color pictures. 
Actually, I do like color, too.
I think pinhole photography, in particular, has had two strikes against it for too long. Some people think it’s only for kids and those too poor to afford a real camera. That’s not true. It’s fantastic for anyone as a way to experiment, get an alternative view and unlimited depth of field. The other strike against it has been the lack of control that budding Ansel Adams types don’t have. Get over it. Have some fun and find some images. There is something to be said for serendipity.
Chances are, you’ll find out that pinhole photography is worth some of your attention, too.
I was looking for some information about paper negatives and came across this test of pre-flashing the paper that I wanted to pass along.
Here is a resource on f295.org that shows in great detail how to establish the pre-flash required for a given paper.
To go along with it, here are some thought about paper negative permanence.
Enjoy it.
Today’s site of the day is www.unblinkingeye.com.
This is another good resource site. It has articles that are often good step-by-step tutorials. Many are alternative process articles like
Getting Started In Wetplate Collodion Photography or this Lith Printing article.
Some are more basic how to articles such as this one on How to Develop Film.
It has Photographic Formulas for those with an interest in mixing their own darkroom chemicals.
Like the Massive Dev Chart at digitaltruth.com, this site also has Film Development Times.
A particularly nice resource page on this site is Alternative and Historical Process Links. Yep, more places I can go and spend hours.
It has travel photography articles such as A Spiritual Journey to West Bengal. I liked this one because I have several friends from India including one Bengali.
The content on this site is well worth checking out. That’s especially true if you are interested in old or alternative photographic processes.
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