Pinholes from Civita di Bagnoregio (a portfolio) 2019

Pinholes from Civita di Bagnoregio (a portfolio) 2019

I lived in Civita di Bagnoregio for 32 days from mid-November into December of 2019.  I received  a fellowship from the Civita Institute to photograph the old Etruscan hilltop town with my pinhole cameras.  I took my 120 film pinhole camera (the “Zero”), my 4 x 5 inch pinhole camera (the “Leonardo”), 35 long-exposure (30 days)  metal tins–homemade pinhole cameras from various containers, round tins, an old Saltine tin, altoid tins, and several tins that were from different origins, all of which I exposed onto paper (Those long-exposure images are the subject of another post).  With the two bigger cameras, I shot color negative film and those are the ones shown here.  I worked everyday shooting the 120 film camera with medium format negatives.  That camera is versatile.  I set it to shoot a rectangle and advanced as if I had shot a square.  Overlap occurred and in some instances, two or more negatives were butted against each other.  I also double exposed several negatives.  This technical information is important because it is what I hoped I was doing.  In other words most of  these images are made from two or more negatives side by side on the film.   Negatives that were together on the film were scanned and printed digitally.  Not every image was on purpose.  Some are plain old happy accidents that I am, well, happy about. All of the negatives are fabrications, not actually how it “looked” because I exposed different places together that I thought would look good.   I was lucky to be in Civita before the pandemic hit and lucky to leave right before it became widely known.  Civita and Italy have withstood centuries of plague, earthquakes, war.  The strength of Civita is in the buildings, the cobblestones, the people.  I hope that that strength comes through.   Everything here has been  printed on 17  x 22  inch  paper as artist’s  proofs  and most  are  available for  $100.00/each.  Please  inquire.  There is only one of each image available at that price, The featured print is a part of the portfolio.   Titled:  Road to Tunnel (with Cloud) UPDATE:  I have sold 11 of these images that I call Artist Proof Prints at 100.00. There is a slight discoloration or exposure problem in each.,I have nine left.  Inquire with your interest.  The corrected edition prints start at 400.00 per print.  They are made in an edition of 10 and the price goes up to 750.00 each as the edition sells out.

Some More Pinholes from Civita

Some More Pinholes from Civita

Well, I have been working steadily on all the images from Civita.  So many I do not know what is good and what is not any more.  I would like to add at least  10 more images so I can get around 25 uploaded and make a portfolio.  What have I learned so far?

  1.  My scanner is dusty.  I spend a lot of time cleaning it and getting rid of dust on the files.  I love working with Photoshop and really do not mind the dust.  It is a way to zoom in to about 300 percent and look at all the details.  It makes me homesick for Civita.  But in order for it to be good photograph, for me, the dust has to go.
  2. I love the exaggerated color.  It is so powerful this color.  I am not enhancing in Photoshop.  There is no need to.  And while in this surreal place, the colors did pop out and make me stop sometimes and catch my breath.
  3. I need to return to Civita in a different season.  In the winter when I was there, a big fog hovered over us.  That mixed with rain, made colors pop.  A different season will mean different light.  I would love to see how the evening light looks on film..

Of course I have learned so many things working on this project other than the three items above  For example a question I am seeking the answer to:  What makes a good diptych?  How does one shoot to ensure that what you get is what you saw?  There are many more questions to be answered but this is not the place.

I feel incredibly lucky to have these images.  I am often surprised by them and do not think that they were made by me.  But I did this, I took these images.  People have asked me, why take photographs that are jumbled together and not “real”.  They are not always easy to look at I understand that sentiment.  But they are also different than the millions of other photographs taken of this touristy place. The fact is that they are very real.  Everyone who knows this place, Civita, will recognize the streets, the cliffs, the buildings, the church, the fog. I did my best to simply take photographs as I saw them.  Thanks for looking.

 

 

The featured image is the entrance to the tunnel that runs under Civita.

Other possible titles:

  1.  Etruscan Caves
  2. Street View
  3. San Donato #5
  4. Lone Cypress
  5. Street View, Landscape and Tiled Roofs
  6. From the Garbage Storage Area
  7. Apartments
  8. Cats
  9. San Donato Disappears
  10. Gate and Street on the Edge
  11. The Valley and the Tunnel Entrance
  12. Fog in the Valley from the Santa Maria Gate (Single Image)

 

Some Pinholes from Civita

Some Pinholes from Civita

I spent  a month in Civita di Bagnoregio, an Etruscan hilltop town in Italy on a fellowship from the Civita Institute, (civitainstitute.org). Since I arrived home mid-December, I have been scanning and editing images. I am still not done but three days ago, finished scanning the 120 color negative film that I shot in a little pinhole camera called the Zero. It took a beating in Civita, the cobblestones, and the tuff rock outside, and the stone floors in the houses are all unforgiving.  I dropped the camera, it broke, I taped it back together and kept going. It gave me 32 rolls of film with about 190 files. I shot so that each image related to the one before or after. This was a difficult thing to do but I wanted to overlap the images so I shot with the camera on a rectangular setting and advanced it as if it were set to a square. This way I did not get any lines between the frames of the negatives–and I made 16 images to a roll instead of 12.  I could not see any of these images because the film had to be developed once I returned to the States.  Also pinhole cameras do not have a viewfinder and I had to become astute at knowing what the cameras would see. Two things helped me get great negatives: the Pinhole Assist app which enabled me to use my iPhone as a light meter and the wonderful people  at the Shot on Film Store in Lake City, WA (www.shotonfilmstore.com/), who developed my film and did a great job.

So what did I photograph?  The old Etruscan hilltop town of Civita where people have lived for thousands of years:  this is what was before me.  The pinhole exposures are at least 10 seconds and no people showed up in my photos.  Mostly I photographed every morning at sunrise until about 9:30 when the tourists started to arrive.  I photographed the town, the streets (cobblestones with no cars), the landscape, the drop off at the edges of the town, the hilltop and the ancient church, the walls, the stones, the light, the fog, and of course the incredible color. (Overexposure exaggerated it). Doing this  was a joy but  made me quite nervous at the same time.  Was I getting the correct exposure?  Did I really think I could overlap the images and it would work?  With the amazing amount of wind and rain would anything be discernible?  What would the townspeople think of these images?  The town is a museum but lived in as well. It  isn’t the way it actually is became my mantra. Each day I would photograph with my Zero for a few hours, come back, eat breakfast, clean up the apartment and then go back out around noon to take some more photographs. The afternoon was more difficult with the number of tourists in the town and the light. In late afternoon I would eat some lunch, then work on the computer for a while and as soon as it got dark, go back out again and take night photographs with my DSLR.  (see previous blog post   janetneuhauser.com/civita-a-month/).  Then a nice long Italian dinner and bed.

Now, as I scan and look and scan and look, I am slowly understanding what it was that I did.  Mixing the landscape with the architecture made sense, but it was something I had not done before.  I am posting thirteen images (including the featured image) that show the variety of the 120 pinhole images that were captured. All are from the Zero camera 120 on color negative film (except the first one, a double exposure from the 4 x 5 large format pinhole still color negative film in which I exposed the full moon outside my kitchen door all night long, then  the walkway to the entrance in the fog on the same sheet of film).   I find the editing process to be as satisfying as the shooting.  Thanks for looking.  (PS  Click on the first image to get a slide show).

 

.         

The featured image is the top of the entrance to the  Altar of the Virgin Mary down off the trail by the cliffs.  Working titles of the others top to bottom, left to right are:

  1. Full moon trail and Walkway (Double Exposure/4 x 5 negative)
  2. Door
  3. Patio on the Edge
  4. San Donato #1
  5. Street, Buildings, Valley
  6. By Giovanni’s Stairs
  7. Partly Real
  8. Lions Gate with the Gate of Santa Maria
  9. An Imagined Space
  10. Arch and Fog
  11. Landscape with Buildings
  12. Walk to the Cliffs at Sunset (single image)

 

 

 

Civita:  A Month at Night

Civita: A Month at Night

I have been in Civita di Bagnoregio for the past month shooting pinhole photographs on a fellowship.  Civita is a surreal, isolated hilltop town north of Rome and I fell in love with It.  It survived largely due to the work of an architect, Astra Zarina and her husband Tony Costa Heywood, also an architect.  Read this article to learn what Astra Zarina  did with her fascinating life.  (Astra Zarina).  The Civita Institute, known also as NIAUSI,  now manages the houses and awards fellowships to all types of people, among many other things. Their website, civitainstitute.org has so much information:  you should go there and read about it.

So this is what I did.

I put 35 cameras from the Pinhole Project around the town when I first arrived.  They were  loaded with paper. Since these needed a good thirty days of exposure, I put them up right away.  Not in the plan was how much rain there was, I mean a lot of rain and wind which soaked and moved the cameras: some so wet that I had to pour the water out when I retrieved them.  The tape used to stick the cameras up did not work at all with the tuff, the rock of Civita.  Instead I put the cameras on downspouts, railings, fences and trees. One went in a car.  Some got taped to windows inside.

The response from the citizens of Civita was gracious and for that I am grateful. They seemed interested, respectful and kind.  Not one of the cameras was taken down or messed with.  Apparently there are no pinhole bandits about the area. I have retrieved the cameras I put up and am in Rome right now.  The paper negatives have been removed from the cans and are in a light tight box waiting to be scanned; several cans have been given to interested people with which to make images to be retrieved later. I will scan my negatives as soon I as I get home!   I also have 32 rolls of 120 C-41 (color negative) film from my Zero 2000.  This film is waiting to be developed along with 30 sheets of 4 x 5 C-41 film shot in my Leonardo.  All of that film, once it is developed can be scanned and shared.  I have been researching developing my own color negatives but am a wee bit nervous to start with this batch. I have been told that it is easy and would certainly be less expensive.  Please chime in if you have done this type of development before or want to help!

I also shot a lot of iphone photographs.  I have always loved that camera. I will probably make a little book of these images. I have been publishing them on Instagram as a way to keep in touch with everyone and everything. It felt good to publish to Instagram which worked when nothing else did but What’s App. (What’s Up with that?)  I will do a blog post of some that did not make it to instagram in the future.  I just have to say: I hate the selfie stick and do not understand the need to photograph oneself in front of historical places or monuments or landscapes.  I have never used the iphone in this manner. And I never will.  Just saying.

I did not intend to but started also to work seriously at night with my DSLR.  I brought it along as a kind of polaroid for the pinholes and was glad I did despite how heavy it was.  The rain would stop and the town would glisten. Since the images are digital,  I have been working on them and have posted some previously unfacebooked images here.

Patience.  It will no doubt take me at least four or even six weeks or longer to get these pinhole photographs done. I do hope there is something valuable there that will intrigue me and you and enlighten us both. I learned some interesting concepts living in  Civita: that I can eat well, make art and be happy that I actually forgot to lock the door at night.  Photography at night is more physically demanding than the day but digital makes it seem easy. Digital gives us that shot of instant gratification.  In the meantime, here are some night photographs as promised. Grazie a tutti cari lettori!  Buona Sera!

 

 

Some Titles:

Moonrise in Civita
Night Delivery
The Arch Fantasma
Boar Hunting in the Moonlight
From the Street:  A Home

Other Images are untitled so far.

Featured Image: Outside Alma’s: Toward the Ape

Shooting the Climate Strike March with the Pinhole

Shooting the Climate Strike March with the Pinhole

I decided recently that almost everything I shoot going forward will be with a pinhole camera on film.  In a world where the average photographer will take several hundred images of an event like the recent Climate Strike March in Seattle, it was not really an easy decision.  I thought a lot about how I take so many photographs generally and never use them;  instead storing them away in the depths of my external hard drive and never looking at them again.  So I went to the Climate Strike March in Seattle with my pinhole camera and one roll of 120 color negative film and of course my iphone camera.  I took 15 shots with my pinhole camera.  I took about ten images with my iphone, just because I could not resist and I had to have something to post to Instagram where all my images are from the iphone.  Below are the photographs made in my 120 Zero 2000 pinhole camera.  The images are lined up on the film with no line between them, no separation between the negatives at all.  I fell into this modus operandi quite  by happy accident of course and it turns out that it works well for me.  Of the 15 exposures I got something I can use on almost every negative. I am pretty happy with that and it shows me the validity in slowing down and really looking.  When I got the negatives back from the lab, I realized I could have exposed about half of the time I did and the negatives would have been less dense and less blurred.  I’m not sure if that would have been better or not.  These exposures were about 10 minutes.  I learned a lot at this march.  I learned that being present while making photographs is important.  Taking so few images  helped that and then standing quietly while the images exposed was good too.  I also answered a lot of questions about pinhole photography.  It does not seem to be a common thing.  I feel like this is a new beginning for me.  I have some other images I have made in the same manner.  I will post those soon.

 

Leaving Cal Anderson Park  (Two negatives)

 

Toward Downtown with Smith Tower (Three negatives)

 

Crossing I-5 (four negatives)


At City Hall (two negatives)

Featured image is at Cal Anderson Park:  The Beginning (one negative)