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 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 negatives were butted against each other. I also double exposed several negatives. This technical information is important because it is what I hoped would get. 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.
