This is what the car looks like set up:
I place my pinhole on the window and tape it using black electricians tape.
The front sheet is placed over the windscreen and under the wiper and the excess is trapped in the side doors.
The back sheet is draped over the back and trapped inside the back door and held to the car using magnets.
The side pieces are trapped in the doors and the rest is held to the car by magnets.
To fit the windscreen sheet I have to remove the radio arial so the sheet can lie flat and be stuck to the car using magnets.
I then cut a hole in the side where the pin hole is and tape the edges of the hole to the window/pinhole (thats the brown patch on the sheet on the driver window).
It looks messy but it works.
I then take a light reading and calculate the exposure time just before I get in the car as after that I am sealed in the dark. Before I take the suggested reading I take a reading at ISO 100 and take a shot using my digital camera to make sure the meter is working correctly.
On the above occasion I was on my own and so had to climb in the car via the boot, when I have someone assisting me I can just open the door and get in and they can seal up the side once I'm in.
Once inside it is quite dark thanks to the black out sheets, but still needs some more blocking. I use cardboard painted black and cut to size to further cover the windows and reduce internal reflection.
windscreen
side window and back window
In the car I have a tripod canvas stand, a 20x24 box to act as a holder, a black 20x24 negative paper bag, my 20x16 paper in card sleeve with black bag, a torch, and tape should I need to secure any areas once inside.
I then set the tripod stand up facing which ever side I have the pin hole on like this:
The 20x24 box acts as a holder.
The box also had a 20x24 white card insert to stop the paper that used to be in the from being folded. I use this as a canvas to pick up the image through the pin hole, I can then line up my stand as best as I can see before I get my paper out.
Once ready I make sure the tripod is secure and the pinhole is unobstructed, and get a comfortable seat either in the back or in the front passenger seat. I then get out one sheet the 20x16 paper. As it is dark I have to feel the paper to see which side has the emulsion on it and then place it in the holder. The paper is held in place using a bulldog clip. I then wait for the calculated time. Once exposed I remove the clip and the paper, and place it in to the 20x24 black bag with the 20x24 card insert. This goes in the 20x24 box, wrapped in a spare blackout sheet and then clipped in place to make sure that the paper stays in a dark space until I can develop it.
11/12/13 - Scouthead, Oldham. f/562 pinhole, roughly 4 min exposure give or take 15 seconds.
This is the first shot I have produced, when enlarged (click on the image) you can see the focus is slightly soft, I am probably a bit off with my focal length and I know my pinhole isn't exactly 1mm! I love the pylons, and have always enjoyed following the wires from the back seat on long stretches of motorway as a child. I have managed to get 6 in this photo in a line, I didn't think that many would be visible! I also like the way the hills softly fade away in to the haze, but are still easy to pick out from one another. if you look carefully you can see Hartshead pike in the distance which is in one of my pinhole box images. The photograph also has a range of tones from black to white which I am very happy about. Unfortunately the photo is blown out where the sun is and so detail has started to be lost on the first pylon and the wires almost disappear over the sun. Ideally the photos would be pin sharp, but this is hard to get right when the focal length as cannot be totally precise with my measuring equipment.
I think I might experiment with a larger aperture and use a lens to focus the image, although no longer pinhole, it will still be along the same lines. The larger hole will bring down exposure time dramatically, and the lens will help me get much sharper photographs.
Here is the second Image I have produced using the car technique. The first attempt at this photo meant I had to sit in the car for 2 hours in the deserted upper levels of the car park. When i got to college I had put the paper in back to front and so no image had been taken! I returned to take it again and this time I used a large aperture making the focal length f/4 and used a lens from a magnifying glass to focus the image. The exposure time for this image was just 30 seconds.
I had to hold the paper a lot closer to the paper as the magnifying glass has a short focal length of itself which I don't know how to work out. I couldn't get the tripod stand I had used perviously to stay upright on its own in the position it had to be in and so I had to hold on to it to keep it in the right position. This means that the photo is not as sharp as it could have been. Other factors affecting the sharpness are that the magnifying glass only focuses the very centre of the image and loses focus quickly towards the edge. This causes blurring which then makes the rest of the page overexposed as it is hit by lots of diffused light instead of a measured amount of focused light.
Another issue I had with the image is the contrast between the dark inside and the light outside. I have overexposed the image but it was necessary to make the interior visible, however this has caused the light from outside to blow out.
I think I have pushed the contrast of this paper to its limits with this shot. And I think by taking both a landscape and an urban image I have also tested the range of abilities of this film to a small degree.
Now I have a clearer understanding of what works and what doesn't I feel more confident photographing in the future using this method.
Overall I am happy with my pinhole shots and think I have produced some good images for the brief using a range of pinhole techniques and cameras to produce my work.
As my final 3 images to submit I will submit the two car images and the pinhole box photo of heartshead pike.
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