Nov 18, 2014 | Blog
Right around the Solstice last summer, I asked everyone in the building where I live and work to expose a pinhole camera from their windows for ninety days for the Pinhole Project. The idea was to expose all the cameras from each studio in the building, leaving the cameras up from the Solstice to the Equinox. The cameras recorded amazing trails of the sun all summer and into the fall. The views are recognizable, at least for those of us who are here every day and tended the cameras through the heat of last summer. The colors are mysterious and varied. I thank my colleagues, friends, fellow artists, neighbors all who participated. I did not know, until we did this, how beautiful our neighborhood actually is or much the sun shines on us or how the freeway is just a little toy off in the distance. I also did not know you can see the light of the sun trails to north and the south as well as east and west.
The building where I live and work is an artist’s coop. We own the building together, 20 units in all and I have always loved the views, from all sides of the building. I wanted to capture them with the long exposure pinhole cameras, hoping this was a good idea, but during the ninety days, I worried that the images might come out all the same. the views, the sun trails, the colors and the group as a whole would be boring. Scanning completely proved me wrong. The thirty images which I have uploaded here are titled with the name/unit number of the pinhole photographer. The grid, as it appears below, echoes how the printed images were hung in my studio last weekend. Below the grid are all the images which can be viewed individually. The building sits up against I-5 in the SoDo area of Seattle right before the Spokane Street interchange. The front of the building faces due west, the back east, a few units have south windows, and all the units that face north have windows in that direction. The featured image shows a pinhole image of the building that I made last spring. It is a 30 day exposure and shows the building’s west side. You can see the sun trails from the east above the building and the sun trails from the west reflected in the front windows.
The 30 images were featured at the Open Studios at out building this past November 15th. They are still up on my studio wall and will be up until Christmas time. Another opening will happen early in December. Stay tuned for dates and times and thanks for your continued support of the Pinhole Project.
Oct 4, 2014 | Blog
Quite a few years ago Jess and I took a roll of film of each other, standing in the same place with the old twin lens reflex I was using at the time. I found this contact sheet recently and pinned it to the wall. The two rolls of film, overlaid as shot are full of surprises and laughs, scary in an oddly shocking way. All and more than we intended at the time. I wonder why I put the sheet deep in a box and did not look at it for years. It is a beautiful contact sheet printed on some old (even at the time) single weight glossy silver gelatin paper. I now see this contact sheet as the piece for this shoot, not individual frames. The overlaid negatives merged because we shot standing in the exact same place. It is odd because I remember the day, the weather but I do not remember the place. It was no doubt the yard, the scary out of doors where we lived in the woods with its glowing light, trees on all edges, an old cabin in a small clearing.
This post is an ode to these two rolls of film that merged and celebrate the happy accident, the unknowing intent, the down right luck involved in making art . Not all contact sheets are works of art in themselves. But all contact sheets teach us about how we see when we make photographs. Can looking at work in this linear fashion be done effectively with contact sheets made from digital images? I ask my digital students to make contact sheets from their top twenty images from an assignment. They love looking at the contact sheets but it is a completely different way of editing/looking than making a sheet from a roll of film. What are the effects on how photographers are learning to see? I don’t know the answer to this. If anyone does, please let me know.
Oct 2, 2014 | Blog
April Surgent is a glass artist who went to Antarctica on an artist grant with 20 pinhole cameras. She worked there for several weeks, making many creative and unusual pinhole photographs using cameras that had two or more pinholes. Tonight, a show including these images opens at Traver Gallery in Seattle. She made several of the images into engravings and the result is beautiful. I just uploaded 59 of her original pinhole images to the Pinhole Archive. Take a look at the images in the Pinhole archive (https://www.janetneuhauser.com/thepinholeprojectgallery/) and then stop at Traver Gallery(http://www.travergallery.com/gallery_artist_details/April-Surgent.aspx) and see the show. She has taken the Pinhole Project to new heights.
Sep 6, 2014 | Blog, Pinhole Wedding Photography
G. Lucas Crane is all grown up. He is the son of my dear friends who have been there for me all the way from grade school. Beyond grown up, Lucas is in his thirties: a musician, performer, artist and all around genius. And he got married just this past August. I have been trying to think of a very special something for him and the lucky woman, Angie. They are just right for each and I am so happy for them. She is a wonderful addition to the Crane family and I look forward to getting to know her.
Looking through the boxes of prints recently, I realized how many photographs I have made of Lucas over the years. All have stories. He has been a great friend, model, subject. We had lots of fun when he was a cute little kid, with curly blonde hair, drawing like a madman on scraps of paper. I consider it one of the lucky things in my life: to watch him grow up! The feature image of this post is one of him on a rainy day in April in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn in the 1980’s. He is about six I think. This image hangs in a 911 Center as part of a 1% for the Arts grant I received years ago. It is also included in the Kid Pictures portfolio.
In August, I made a pinhole color negative of the Lucas and his bride, Angie, on the big day and I made another one of them actually getting married. It was a beautiful wedding in upstate New York. I exposed the image of the ceremony for twenty-five minutes, the entire length of the rite. It is an image about memory and movement and I hope they love it. I love the way they moved through out that time in the beautiful grove of trees with flower petals scattered about. The image of the two of them afterwards is about a two minute exposure. They held still for the exposure, so excited and so relaxed. Thanks Lucas and Angie. Here’s to a long and loving relationship!
To find out more about Lucas, go to this page which has a short bio, http://nonhorse.com/Bio.html or google him and listen to some of his music. He played with the band Woods for a number of years and continues to grow and work as a musician, performer, and all around amazing guy.
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Sep 6, 2014 | Blog
As most people know, I am a high school photography teacher. It was never my intent. I enjoyed teaching after graduate school but never wanted to “deal” with teenagers and definitely did not intend ever to have a steady job. Then, there was no other way but one way to support myself and that way fell into my lap. I became a high school photography teacher and it became my day job. Now, when I think of the term day job, I think of the many manual labor, demeaning low paying jobs I have had over the years and the high school teaching job does not fit into that description. Still I go to it everyday during the school year for eleven hours each day door to door. I ride my bike there and that gives me a way to re-enter my home and studio with the day job left behind. I am able to live in two different worlds pretty successfully; in fact I enjoy both immensely. The teenagers I have taught have been rewarding, frustrating, sometimes sad, tons of fun. They keep me young in my 21st year of teaching high school. I am good at it, though my students (some of them anyway) might say different. But in the summer, as soon as school is out, I have almost ten consecutive weeks to work in my studio on anything I want. I get a rhythm and because I live and work in the same place, I get a lot done. Summer is a blissful time, I go to bed late, take a catnap in the afternoon, work in the studio or go on a road trip and take pictures. It’s a beautiful life. And then, the day job calls out from it’s slumbering heap in the corner, and I can’t believe summer is over. True, in some ways I am grateful for the discipline of the day job. It keeps me honest, in a routine that is healthy out of necessity. I become responsible, eat well, do yoga and go to bed early.
I will be the first to admit I get a thrill out of my day job. After all, teaching is fun and I really enjoy turning teenagers onto photography. They are not afraid to make mistakes and they love to express themselves, to be heard. So as I begin another year of teaching, I am looking for ways to merge both lives. I intend this year to loosen my grip on myself; enjoy every minute more and let both types of work, teaching and making photographs flow freely. I am continuing to work with color negative film in the 4 x 5 inch pinhole camera. I give you two here both made in the Catskills, New York State, this summer. More to come as I finish processing.
Aug 7, 2014 | Blog
Sometime ago I found a box of negatives from an old Mamiya twin lens that slipped when the film advanced. I loved that camera; it made great double exposures, sometimes intentional, sometimes not. In the box was this image of Jess, taken around 2002, a double exposure and for some reason, I must have turned the camera on its side for one of the exposures. Can you see the close up of Jess’ face in the first image? Her head is turned and she looks straight at the camera, the small profile (in the image on the right) forms her left eye. The two images together create an optical illusion, like the vase/face test.
The image was made right after Jess discovered music shows on First Avenue in Seattle. She was constantly listening to music and would pose only if she could wear headphones. I am so glad she did. At the time we were watching a lot of old Star Trek shows hooked on them really and her kind of Borgian look must have been influenced by them. I made this diptych in Photoshop after scanning the negative. The diptych enables the viewer to see both pictures on the negative which pop and compete and then blend together. You could get the same effect with a single print, you would just have to rotate it. The intent is to make a really big darkroom diptych, maybe make it into a mandala. See it all four ways. Thanks Jess for posing! Wonder if you still listen to Sugarcult.
