What I Do With My Pinhole Polaroids

Normally after I take a Polaroid photo, I write on the back: film type and expiration, date, time, weather conditions, and camera used.  Then I scan it, and store them safely together in order.  I will do several scans of the same photo, the first done as close to the original photo, flaws and all, with subsequent scans adjusting to compensate for, or enhance the flaws.

In rare cases, I make adjustments in Photoshop, as I've done here, using the very first photo taken by my Arunas cam, my new Polaroid-backed pinhole camera introduced in the last post.  Making a Levels Adjustment for each color channel on separate layers, rather than on one adjustment, created the 'pop' version, shown here in my second photo.  Adding a Hue and Saturation adjustment, I desaturated and toned the whole scene to create a more vintage style, which you see in the third photo.  I would imagine even if you don't have Photoshop, Google's free Gimp program, or any other image editing program has these two basic Adjustment features.  Try them out yourself!

My New Camera

A couple of weeks ago while at the Impossible Project Store's grand opening, I had the pleasure of meeting one of my Flickr contacts.  Long story short, he ended up offering to make me a pinhole camera with a Polaroid back - - how exciting!  About a week later, I received an email showing me the work in progress....

AND THEN.... it was finished.  Before I knew it, I was holding this camera in my shaking hands!!  (See below, left....sorry for the small pic; I will later take one with my digital)  It's hard to see that the Asian coin in the photo above which surrounds the pinhole is now covered with a fancy brass latch and hook with snug material inside to prevent any light from reaching the hole.   Also notice the polaroid 'back' which Arunas has amazingly developed using a vintage Polaroid camera; the kind with the bellows.

In order to take a photo, just aim at your object, and open the latch for the number of seconds, minutes, or hours required, given the available light.  I've been estimating outdoors in bright sunlight, and for indoor projects (which I've yet to do because the film I'm using now is better suited to bright sun) I'll utilize my (borrowed from my twin sister) manual light meter to measure the light and calculate/estimate the necessary exposure time.

So here are the first results:
(I have to learn now to 'aim'.  It's a bit of trial and error, but I just love that it is imperfect.)

This is my kind of camera; one which uses the basis of photography - allowing light inside to expose a piece of sensitive film for the proper amount of time to make a picture.  Take away all those expensive lenses and focusing devices.  Get away from the digital thing.  It's a hole made with a pinprick.  Simple and good.

I highly encourage anyone interested in having one made for themselves to contact Arunas.  He is a wonderful person who loves to share his passion for photography with others.  Quite less than $100 can get you a one-of-a-kind pinhole beauty which makes a great gift to you or someone you know.  I get nothing from this; just want everyone to share in the joy!  Take a look at some of the cameras he's made so far, and then shoot him an email at akulis2 [at] gmail [dot] com to have your own made...... Oh, and tell him Susan Mac sent you!