Janet and Jess

Janet and Jess

I wanted to make a new Home page and have my website open up to it.  But alas, my template will not allow it.  Might have to change, but in the meantime what I wanted to do on the home page was offer one item for sale each week.  This week it is an old school contact sheet, silver gelatin, single weight paper of two sets of negatives printed together that my daughter Jess and I took in about 1994 with my old Mamiyaflex TLR.  We had a deal:  when I shot a photograph of her, she got to shoot one me.  In this case, I shot a whole roll of her and she shot a whole roll of me. (12 photographs each).  We shot these with the intention of the two rolls going together.  I never made prints from this because I loved the sheet so much.  It shows a little wear and tear because it has been hanging, unmatted on a wall for the last 20+ years.  I have decided to offer it for sale for $200.00, un-matted and unframed.  It is backed on a piece of rag paper 11 x 14 inches and will look lovely framed.  The contact sheet is 8 x 10 inches.  There is only one of these!  And I won’t make another silver gelatin print of it.  If you are interested go to my shop and buy it.  You can pick directly from me and save shipping costs or I am happy to ship it.  You can pay through pay-pal.  This contact sheet is part of the portfolio, Kid Pictures, a 20 year documentation of my daughter and other kids growing up.  Thanks for reading and for your interest.  Help me pay my bills!

More on the Shunpike Storefront in South Lake Union

The storefont lives on.  Originally I placed five cameras in the Storefront window looking out to the so called view.  Not a great view but the cameras did make photographs.  I had two two-hole cameras, an altoid tin, my favorite square camera, an array of nine small cameras.  All of them were looking at the same thing:  a small plaza in front of the building, trees and the rain guard above the window.  They were up for about six weeks so the other day I took them down.  I reloaded the cameras and set them back with the exception of the altoid tin camera, I replaced that one with a larger, round camera.  I actually needed the altoid tin to go to another photographer who wanted a camera.  Right now I have no altoid tins in stock.  If anyone has some that would be great.  Send on over  to me or drop by and leave outside my door.  I could go and buy a 15 pack of altoids at Costco, but I really do not altoids anymore and would rather not do that.  Haven’t had to buy tins for about five years.  I know people have tins laying around their homes, so cough them up folks. (No pun intended).

Enough about altoid tins.  Here are the photographs taken from the window of the store front.  The featured photograph is a night time exposure by Shunpike of the window.  It looks better at night in a photograph because there are no reflections.  As you can imagine it was very difficult to chose the hundred or so images that are shown here.  There are no bad pinholes!  A different day I would have chosen different images.  But in the meantime, the cameras which were attached to glass window took the following photographs.  I do not know why they are the colors what they are.  All were done with the same paper, in the same location.  One would expect that they would be the same, but in the Array of Nine, they are not.  I put the cameras back up today and will leave them up until I take the whole thing down in September.  One more thing:  the security guard for the building I am in (Amazon donates their spaces) was upset that I could only take photographs to the South since that is way that the window faces.  I gave him a new telephoto camera to take a photograph of the Space Needle which is very close and to the west.  He went up to the eleventh floor of building and hung the camera on a window facing the needle.  This photograph of the Space Needle will be his and I will post under his name, since he hung it and is tending it.  Name will be revealed when the camera is taken down in September.

The Array of Nine;  small round cameras.  I do not know why some of the images are brown.

A two hole camera from an old Christmas Cookie tin

An altoid tin camera

A two hole Saltine Cracker Tin camera.  The camera fell down once and was put back up and then slid down a ways another time.

One of my favorite cameras;  a large square tin that has been used about 20 times.

If you have a chance, go by and see the storefront in the South Lake Union neighborhood.  There are, I think  ten windows by ten artists up on display.  Mine is on the corner of John and Boren.  Thank you Shunpike for supporting the Pinhole Project.  And lastly, the featured image is a photograph that I took today after rehanging the cameras.  Like I said too many reflections during the day.  Best if you go and see it yourself.  Thanks for reading.

The Shunpike Storefront in South Lake Union

The Shunpike Storefront in South Lake Union

Recently the Pinhole Project received  a storefront window in the South Lake Union Area sponsored by Shunpike.  This storefront is a 12 foot long window that will house  some of the Pinhole Project images for about three months. It will house a very small percentage of the images in the archive.  The window  is three feet deep and I will be putting prints up on the wall and cameras up on the window (from the inside).  The goal is to photograph during the duration of the installation and refill the cameras as I empty them and put up recent prints.  So far I have some cameras to put up, and nine small round tins which will be in a grid.  I am glad to have this opportunity and am printing photographs  wanting to print many more.  I love the simplicity of this photography.   The image below I printed originally but recently a ten foot print was made for the window.  This First Season of the Sunny Arms Artist Project, “Out There” is featured here.  The Sunny Arms artists exposed pinhole cameras from their windows looking out, from Equinox to  Solstice, a total of four times (all four seasons of the year, 90 days each season).  The building  is in South Sodo, five stories, in an industrial neighborhood;  decidedly not beautiful but these images make it seem so. The first season, below is on a bus shelter  at South Beacon Avenue and South Holly Street. I knew it would print well large.  The bus shelter project was sponsored by  the Photo Center NW and King County Metro;  they put photographs on shelters all over King County.  (Go here for a previous blog post on the bus shelter project).  Take a look.

 

I have been poring over all the Pinhole Project images.  Each day brings new choices.  With almost four thousand images in the archive it is difficult to choose.  I have been printing from different “galleries” or folders on the website.  One print I have done is from people who have shot at least ten images and now they have their own  folders on the website.  I am not done yet but I printed this one yesterday.

These big pieces of paper are 22 x 17 inches. I think I can only fit six in the installation. On the window, inside looking out will be several pinhole tins that will be taking photographs of the street.  I will use several tins and put a print on the window next to the camera so people can understand how they see.  I have a saltine tin two hole that has been used three times.  The problem is, I only have crazy photographs from that camera, it must a camera with the crazies.  My brother, Steve Neuhauser,  used the camera inside his boathouse where he lives on his boat.  This is what he took a photograph of. The featured image is also from the Saltine Tin.

 

 

This image was made in a old Poinsettia covered Christmas tin.  I think it must have held cookies.  It is the perfect shape for a two hole camera.  This I took during the pandemic, hung the day the lockdown began and finished on April 26th.  I am planning on using it in the window too.

 

So if you need something to do during the summer, go downtown after June 1st, the install date.  Park in the South Lake Union Area (SLUA) and walk over to Boren and John Streets.  You can see all the images that are up and stand very still for oh about a week and you can be recorded on the cameras in the window.  If you walk around there are several other artists with windows in the area, I think 8 total.  There will not be a formal tour of the windows by Shunpike this year as in the past. But you can walk around down there and it is a pleasant neighborhood.  Thank you #Shunpike for this opportunity.  The featured image is one of the big prints I made with a lot of images on it. You can see the image in its entirety at the Storefront.  I will post some photographs of the installation when it is installed.  Thanks for reading.  And get a camera and join the Pinhole Project.

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).

 

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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