Oct 5, 2013 | Blog
Last night we went to the South Park neighborhood of Seattle, wandering through the boatyards and down to the river. We shot the bridge under construction, talked with the locals, gaped at the huge boats out of water. It was a beautiful warm night, even a few stars visible beyond the glaring lights set up for the workers rebuilding the bridge. For the grand finale, we went to a little park along the Duwamish River. The low tide left a muddy beach that was sticky in the dark. As we exposed our images, the rocks in the shallow water started to move and we realized the rocks were racoons. There is so much color and life at night! Staying with a four minute exposure and then a four minute noise reduction process, forces one to just stand and look and listen. Such a gift to do this in the dark, in the city. The featured image for this post is my four minute exposure, looking north up the Duwamish toward downtown Seattle.
In the boatyard, the boats were giant shapes lurking in the dark. The photograph reveals the remarkable colors and personalities of these vessels. Is there anything I love more than a boat out of water? Here are two images:
To see the work of the students and more work of mine, go to our flickr.com group, http://www.flickr.com/groups/2288163@N25/
Oct 2, 2013 | Blog
I am teaching a night class that started last Friday. It was a wonderful night free of the threatened downpour. We meandered from South Sodo to Georgetown, shooting along the way, actually only covering a small area. We are posting images to a flickr. group and you can go there over the course of the next four weeks to see the work the group and I make. The image posted here, Lucille Crossing, to the North is my ode to the Lucille Street train as it crosses Lucille at the Argo Bridge and Airport, where trains are close enough to touch. The featured image is Lucille Crossing, To the South. Here’s the link, to our group http://www.flickr.com/groups/2288163@N25/
Sep 22, 2013 | Blog
After a summer of working on the Archive, getting rid of dust and scratches and the ugly white line made by the scanner, the new and improved Archive of images is alive and well and back up on this website. Because of the growing size of the Archive, it is linked to a private flickr.com account. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out any way to alphabetize the photographs by image maker on the flickr photostream. If anyone knows how to do that, please let me know! So bear with me, dear reader, and someday soon, we will have a search box on the Archive so you can find your images easily. The Project continues to grow! Right now there are about 100 cameras placed and exposing, scattered far and wide. I plan on retrieving the two I left in public places in California this past summer sometime in the next few months. Other people have placed them in their own backyards, along highways and roadsides, under bridges. Exciting news is that 10 cameras are going in October with glass artist April Surgent to Antarctica, where she will live with the scientists and make art for six weeks. Can’t wait to see the landscape in Antarctica as recorded through the pinhole. If you are going anywhere, exotic or not, take along a pinhole camera. Someday, the Archive may well a huge variety of places around the world. We already have the Czech Republic and Hawaii among the collection, as well as many different states from New York to California. And by the way, the featured image for this post is by painter Nathan Gibbs with an image of his backyard in Southern California. Thanks Nathan!
Here is the link to the Archive: http://www.janetneuhauser.com/thepinholeprojectgallery/
Aug 24, 2013 | Blog
Yesterday was a wonderful day. I received my 4 x 5 color negatives from Citizens Photo in Portland (http://www.citizensphoto.com/), the only place in the Northwest that will develop this film. Thank you Citizen’s Photo, you did a great job. Two weeks ago, I drove up the Lost Coast of California with a friend also known as the Master of the Road Trip and here are the two images from our Punta Gorda adventure: one a image from my new fancy expensive DSLR (see blog post, Paradise is a Road Trip) and one from my 4 x 5 pinhole camera on color negative film. I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the negative film from the lab. I am happy to report that I love the pinhole image very much. The pinhole image holds onto the feeling surrounding the moment, not just the moment itself. Let me explain: up on that ridge on the Prosper Road, the wind was whipping from the west off the Pacific Ocean. It was the Golden Hour. We were dressed in sweatshirts and hats and long pants because there was a chill in the air. The light glowed and the ocean, far below, crashed and sang its own tune. It was a moment in which I felt totally alert and totally relaxed at that same time. It was all about the light and the wind and the sound of the waves hitting the beach. How do light and moment translate feeling onto film? What does the print have to do with it? The print of the pinhole is soft and sweet and beautiful. I printed one only and it is so close to done. The DSLR print I keep trying to make it less perfect. I can’t seem to get it right. Why is that?
Prosper Road to Cape Mendocino, Digital Image from my DSLR camera, f16, 1/20 second, ISO 400
Prosper Road to Cape Mendocino, Pinhole Camera Exposure on 4 x 5 inch color negative film, two negatives scanned and stitched together in Photoshop. f256/120 seconds, ISO 400.
These images were exposed at almost exactly the same time. Go figure.
Aug 15, 2013 | Blog
Last summer I spent two weeks in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, Red Hook and shot steadily every day. My first thought was that I would rephotograph my favorite images from the 1980’s. The problem was that the neighborhood had changed so much that I could not find the exact location of many of the images. I was disappointed and have not edited the images too much since then. But lately I have started to edit and realized that though I did not rephotograph the old images, I was working in a similar vein, on the edges, on the dead ends and in overgrown lots and streets. I loved the wild edges of the harbor then and was happy to see that still they exist.
The changes in the neighborhood have been significant, as most people know, the area has been “gentrified.” Now this is not necessarily a bad thing, but for me the big change is one called air conditioning. The eleven years I lived in the Hook, I did not have air conditioning nor did most anyone else. At night, everyone was out enjoying the cool breeze off the harbor and everyone knew everyone else. Now, the streets at night are empty. People aren’t sitting outside, talking to their neighbors. I missed the connections, the way everyone knew my name back then and the way my neighbors looked after each other. The streets were never empty in the old days. Still last summer, I walked the streets and ran into a few old timers who remembered me and they laughed when I showed them the old photographs and said, oh, you will never find that again. But I did find the edges and realized that was what I was looking for all along.
Here are a few examples of the new work from the Hook. I hope to have a portfolio up on the website soon.
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Aug 11, 2013 | Blog
I took a week and flew to San Francisco and then drove up to the Lost Coast with a friend, a master of the road trip. We hid two pinholes on the Coast and if they survive for six months, they will need to be retrieved and scanned. If found accidentally, I left a little plea not to open, to search the internet for The Pinhole Project and hopefully then preserve the camera. I love the idea of putting out the cameras for extended periods of time, no way to know whether they will make it six months. The experience has taught me much about placing the cameras for the long term and how niches are best, protected from the weather, subtle little corners no one will notice. The key is flexibility and believing in the happy accident.
I als
o photographed on this trip with my trusty dslr and a 4 x 5 pinhole camera that was loaded with color negative film. Here is a dslr image taken from the exact spot as the 4 x 5 pinhole, up on Prosper Road. One important difference is in the amount of time both images were exposed: the pinhole had an exposure of about 30 minutes, and the dslr exposure was only 1/20 of a second. The wind was blowing straight in from the ocean. Very energetic and very tranquil at the same time. It will be interesting to see which exposure does justice to this magnificent view. The fog rolled in and laid down on the hills, said a big screw you to me as though a little fog could talk me out of taking a picture. I photographed until the light was gone. Incredibly beautiful spot, and I do not begin to believe that I have done it justice. But am grateful for the opportunity to try. Below is the pinhole image: I will let you decide which one you like better.
The featured image was a small long exposure pinhole camera placed loaded with paper and placed under a bridge for just 24 hours. I do not understand it nor can I tell what happened, One of the mysteries of life.
