5x7 Pinhole

Crane Creek Regional Park in Sonoma County, California. Paper negative in a coffee can. Exposure about 1 hour.

At the Veronda-Falletti Ranch in Cotati, California. Paper negative in a coffee can pinhole camera.

Printed 29 and 30 June, 2018 Quick digi-snaps of some test prints. The top is a plain salt print and the bottom is similar but toned with gold thiocyanate. For whatever reason, this old pinhole paper negative has become my "test" negative... I've probably printed it 200 times. It has bright highlights, a dark foreground, the sky is good for evaluating what highlights will do, and the water is good to see if the "glow" that can happen when using starch is there. It's a long story why, but lately I've decided to really make an effort to print with starch as the binder ( instead of gelatin or plain paper ). I've been working with rice starch and these represent a kind of breakthrough: even coating, enough silver without having to double coat or use too strong silver nitrate solution, and lack of fog. The margins on the right are masked during printing, and only coated 1/2 way across with silver nitrate, so you can compare the brightest white on the print with uncoated paper. On the top print, it is nearly perfect. On the bottom, there is just a hint of a "shadow" but it is very good. More importantly, there are no areas on the prints that are weak because they did not get enough silver nitrate, and there are no streaks or lines from uneven starch coating. Turns out that the kind of rice you get the starch from is very important! By luck I tried basmati rice and it works much better than other kinds of rice or arrowroot. I have a stack of prints of this negative..about 2 or 3 inches high..made in the past couple years. Most were made with various papers + applying arrowroot in different ways, and some with rice starch. Some of them have beautiful tones, but all of them have flaws and problems that make the process unusable. These are the first two that really worked! Because our cupboard only had basmati rice in it. These were made by floating the paper on dilute rice water with 2% kosher salt, drying, and then brush coating with silver nitrate, drying and exposing. Since it worked so well, yesterday I prepared a batch of larger paper to make more prints with. I've got one going right now as I type this... :)

WPPD 2018 coffee can pinhole camera, paper negative

Looking out over the dirty rain-splattered hood of my car, windy day at the coast yesterday... there were whales jumping out of the water and splashing out there :) Pinhole paper positive, trying out an idea.... if you re-expose and re-develop these, they like to be a little on the underexposed side, so I tried exposing for the sky. 30 second exposure. After bleaching, re-exposed to light and then re-developed in normal print developer. Pretty good sky for paper.

Behind a handcrafted yarn store... This was painted flat barn red and is not overexposed after 6 minutes! ( Normal exposure would be around 40 or 45 seconds in full sunlight like this ) I tried this a week ago with a 1 minute exposure and the result was almost blank. Direct pinhole paper positive using mostly safer chemicals, re-developed in thiocarbamide.

In Cotati, California. Here in Northern California we don't have as many palm trees as in the Southern part of the state. Another pinhole paper positive made by bleaching the negative with hydrogen peroxide and then redeveloping with thiourea.

Today at Taylor Mountain Regional Park in Sonoma County, California.. my little coffee can pinhole camera was sitting in the middle of the trail and my dog was lying there waiting patiently when another group came along with a dog so I picked it up after 4 minutes.... was planning to go a bit longer but I like how it came out anyway :) Another "direct paper positive" redeveloped in thiocarbamide. It's a bit difficult to get midtones with the thiocarbamide ( compared to re-exposing and developing w/ paper developer ) .. you can see some good midtones in the pool of sunlight just in front of the camera, but that was quite bright. I'm learning that if you want to develop these in sepia, you need to give more exposure or it ends up like a notan.

Another "direct positive" this time redeveloped in thiourea ( sepia toner ). Rainy afternoon, 1 hour exposure in a coffee can pinhole camera.

Another "direct positive" this time redeveloped in thiourea ( sepia toner ). Rainy afternoon, 1 hour exposure in a coffee can pinhole camera.

In Cotati, California Pinhole paper positive made by reversal process using safe chemicals. ( Really hard to make these without touching them at all... I was wearing nitrile gloves, and that fingerprint happened before I put it into the bleach... any touch at all leaves a mark. oh well! :)

This is one of my favorite trees... at Crane Creek Regional Park in Sonoma County, California Pinhole paper positive made by reversal process using safe chemicals.

At Ragle Ranch in Sebastopol, California. Pinhole paper positive made by reversal process using safe chemicals.

At Ragle Ranch in Sebastopol, California. Pinhole paper positive made by reversal process using safe chemicals.

Another "direct positive" made from the photo paper that was in my pinhole coffee can camera.

It rained here on Friday and I let this pinhole shot go for 48 minutes to try another direct positive. Blacks came out a bit weak ( I think I pre-flashed the paper double by mistake ) but it looks kinda neat anyway.

I tried to make another "direct postive" using polycontrast paper that expired in 1977. This is fog on the 40 year old paper, but on Tuesday when I made this standing on my back porch, the whole world was white with smoke and I could not see anything beyond those trees. Nothing but worry and fear for the people living beyond that wall of smoke.

Oaks at Crane Creek Regional Park in Sonoma County, California. This is a new direct positive process developed by Ricardo Leite and Joe Van Cleave. You are looking at the same photopaper that was in my coffee can pinhole camera, not an inverted scan or contact print. It uses hydrogen peroxide and citric acid instead of more toxic and dangerous chemicals like potassium dichromate and sulfuric acid. This particular one was made even more safely by using weak 3% hydrogen peroxide like you can buy at any drugstore.