Viewfinder Magazine by Viewfinder Magazine

Creative Photography May 2011 | Issue 01

S o u r ce : f l i ckr.com/nesster

The VF Team

Paul Murphy E ditor

Shoots on 18 film cameras from little plastic lens toys to pro SLR. Also shoots digital on a Canon EOS 450D. flickr.com/analoguepaul

Editorial

Welcome Welcome to Viewfinder Maga zine, a magazine that celebrates all forms of creativity found in photography. In our first issue we ’ll be taking a look at one of the most creative photographers around at the moment, Tim Kirman. We’ll guide you through basic HDR and give a simple introduction to pinhole photography. Paddy Murphy, an Irish photographer living in Poland, explains how through photographing street art in his new surroundings reveals that Creative Photography May 2011 | Issue 01

S ean O’Flaherty C reative Editor

Shoots with a Canon EOS 5D and 450D and a 35mm Pentax SP1000. Is also not a stranger to the world of the Diana F+. flickr.com/seanof

graffiti is much more than the nuisance it is sometimes per ceived as. Also, inside you’ll find a gallery of the best photographs submitted to us, here, at Viewfinder over the last month. There is also the latest news and we take a special look at a friendly look ing toy camera. The Viewfinder team also produce a monthly podcast, which is a great accom pani ment to this magazine so while you’re reading you can listen to us at vi ewfinderpodcast.com

- the VF Team

A ndy Doyle P odcast Producer

Canon EOS 7D expert but from time to time he swaps his DSLR for his old Praktica and Lubitel cameras. flickr.com/andywithcamera

Contributors Paddy Murphy (flickr.com/spudmurf), Tim Kirman (www. penguinmania.tk), Xenia Elizabeth (flickr.com/xenializ), Louis Bosco (flickr. com/midnight-specials), Lance Rothstein (flickr.com/lancephoto), Robert O’Duill (flickr. com/38235519@N05), Stephen Eustace (flickr. com/seustace2003), David McNally (flickr.com/ david_mcn), Christos Christou (flickr. com/25thc), Nicola Clark (flickr.com/kenickie56), Scribe (flickr.com/ scribe), P o l l i n i s a t i o n (flickr.com/pollinisation), Dominic Alves, ian, Nicky, Crunchy Footsteps, Thomas Anderson, Robbie Sproule, Stefan Powell, Kevin Dooley, Stuart Heath, Donna Barber, Paul Bowman, Alexandre Vialle.

Inside this month’s issue Feature: Polish Street Art

FEATURES

Impossible!

I m p o ss i b l e P r o ject have finally new components, this magnifir e l e a s e d t h e m ost eagerly antic- cent film delights with colorful i p a t e d f i l m t o the instant pho- images that are reminiscent of t o t g r a p h y w o r ld. PX 680 Color the finest characteristics of the S h a d e F i r s t F l ush Edition is the legendary Polaroid materials. l a t e st a d T h e dition to Impost h e P o l as i b l e roid film project t h a t I mbegan in possible late 2008 Project when 10 have reformer invented. employPolaees of the roid 600 Poloroid camera compau s e r s ny, with now have a com t h e i r bined ex f i r s t o pperince portuin in nity to s t a n t s h o o t f i l m c o l o r of 500 p o l o y e a r s , r o i d s set out s i n ce t he PX 680 Color Shade First Flush Edition is available online at http://www.the-impossible-project.com/ to to do P o l o r o i d t h e mselves ceased the impossible and let PoLaroid p r o d u ct i o n o f its films. live. T h e F i r s t Flush Edition of A packet of the new PX 680 t h e P X 6 8 0 C o l or Shade film fills Color Shade First Flush Edition t h e g a p l e f t b y the legendary, by will contains 8 exposures. n o w ha r d t o f ind Polaroid 600 Users should be aware that f i l m a n d i n t r oduces a magical the new film is very sensitive n e w co l o r p a l ette within the to light for the first few seccl a s s i c w h i t e f rame. Utilizing a onds after it comes out of the co m p l e t e l y n e w formula with all camera.

My wall, my culture

Paddy Murphy explains that there’s more than meets the eye with Polish street art.

S h o o t i n g g ra f f i t i h a s l e d th i s ph oto g ra ph e r to d i s c ove r S i l e s i a n c u lt u re i s th e pa i n t i n g o n th e wa l l . Wo rd s a n d P h o to s : Pa d d y M u r phy

This photo was taken with a Lomo Smena Symbol loaded with Solution VX 200 film in Zabrze, in the Silesia region of Poland. Since moving to Kato wice, a busy industrialised city in the south of Poland, not far from the wonderfully beautiful Kraków, I’ve become obsessed with the graffiti culture here and photograph it every chance

I get. I’ve amassed a large collec tion of photos I call ‘Analogue Graffiti’ but this picture is my favourite because the piece it captures reveals so much about the place where I now live. Football is very important in Poland but the matches attract the kind of people that you were warned to stay away from

as a child. Each team has their own ‘Epika’, or ‘crew’ in English. They plaster their murals and tags on as many blank walls as they can. They even tag their rival’s team but spray them either upside down or hanging from a hangman’s noose. First time I saw it I thought it was a very strange way to play the 7

Featured Photographer

Aspiring To Be Bubbles

This month’s most inspiring photographer creates abstract art with his DSLR.

Tim Kirman www.penguinmania.tk

Gallery

GALLERY

An exhibition of the best photographs submitted to Viewfinder Magazine this month.

that the camera has a very small aperture. which should be about f100 or smaller. Although with many homemade pinhole cameras. It’s dif -

Picture: Dominic Alves Flickr: dominicspics

bit of maths to find out the correct f-stop of the pinhole and the different exposure times needed in different light. But due to the large f-num -

‘‘ Essentailly a light proof box

with a pin sized hole in one side

ficult to make a camera to a specific aperture. Using a regular sewing pin you need to find a good way to measure the pinhole diamater. Once the size of the diamater and the distance from the pin hole to the film, or paper, has been calculated, it’s easy with a

’’

ber of a pinhole camera, expo sures will often encounter reciprocity failure. Once exposure time has exceeded about 1 second for film or 30 seconds for paper, the breakdown in linear response of the film/paper to intensity of illumination by using longer exposures must be

compensated for. For those who are not mathematically enclined there is a wealth of knowledge and ex perince available online that can help in calcualteing correct measurements for constructing a pinhole camera and indeed ex psure guidelines. Many of these guidelines will provide a simple way of using a regular light meter to calculate the exposure time for the high f-number. A simple online search for ‘pinhole calculater’ should yield enough results to help con struct a perfect pinhole camera. But the only way to truly get a pinhole camera to work as best as possible is to experiment and experiment. The main characteristics of this type of photography is soft images, long exposure times and great way to learn about camera optics. So as you can see this once thought obsolete method of early photography can easily be used to move quickly aong a learning curve with image capturing and it can also be used for very creative purposes. Pinhole cameras, after all can be made out of anything from old camera bodies, film canisters and matchboxes to fruit and vegetables.

Picture: Nicky

Ollie the Obscura Ollie is a coconut pinhole camera. The hole is in one of his eyes. The hat covers the film access panel.

Picture: Thomas Anderson

Picasso Pinhole A multi pinhole camera, one in one of the noses and one in the lid, made from a bath soap tin.

Picture: Crunchy Footsteps

Polaroid Pinhole Instant pinholes are a real treat and polaroid conversions and modifications can make it happen.

Picture: ian

Matchbox Pinhole Made using the easy to follow istructions found on http://www. matchboxpinhole. com/

Picture: Crunchy Footsteps

Cigarette Pinhole Boxes are always good for pinholes. This camera is made out of a box of American Spirit cigarettes.

Picture: Crunchy Footsteps

Pumpkin Pinhole Inspired by Eric Renner’s bell pepper pinhole camera experiments, this pinhole is a real pumpkin.

Picture: Robbie Sproule

Technique: HDR photography

HDR

‘‘ HDR photography can be

dated as far back as 1850

’’

HDR Photography - Increase your dynamic range using just one R AW file. Words and Photos: S ean O’Flaherty Although High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging, as we know it, appears to be a fairly new concept. Digital HDR is a relatively new art form gaining momentum. Its humble begin nings, however, can be dated back as far as 1850. Frenchman Gustave Le Gray is considered to be the pioneer of using multiple exposures to overcome the problem of a too-extreme range of luminance or tones. He first used this technique with his seascapes to control luminance, combining two neg atives, one exposure for the sky and another longer exposure for the sea, to produce one image in positive. There are two more commonly used techniques to produce HDR images. Firstly, using multiple exposures of a single scene or bracketing, which we will discuss in a future issue, and secondly, the use of one single RAW file and a RAW Converter. Although using one RAW file will increase the dynamic, or tonal, range of your image, it is not considered to be a full HDR image. The main reason being that there is a larger tonal

range achieveable with the use of three seperate exposures of your scene. In this guide we will be using the single RAW file technique and using the cameras histogram as an expo sure guide. Bracketing your exposures leads to a higher tonal range but you can still increase the tonal value of your image using a single file and this method is great for people who are not fa miliar with HDR photography. For this exercise a Canon 450D with the kit lens, 1855mm, a tri-pod and a remote

shutter release was used. The remote is not essential but can be useful for eliminating cam era shake caused by pressing the on-camera shutter release. I used an aperture value of f.16, ISO 100 and a shutter speed of 1/20 for the initial image that we will be working with. I tend to use these set parameters for my aperture and ISO values for all my landscape work, with the shutter speed changing depending on the light. I do this to control my image as best I can, with the

small aperture (f.16) allowing for a very large depth of field, and the low ISO helping to keep noise or grain to a minimum. Firstly set your camera to RAW, then put your camera on the tri-pod, attach the remote shutter release and compose your image. Once you have your picture composed as you see fit, with your settings as mentioned before, its time to shoot. This is where the histogram comes in to play. I won’t go into too much detail about the histogram in order to keep this HDR process as simple as

possible. I used a technique known as exposing to the right here. As you can see in the picture above, this basically means that I push the data on my histogram as far right as possible, without clipping the right hand side which would result in blown highlights. This allows for less noise in the darker areas and a greater use of the colour spectrum. By not clipping the right hand side there is more information in the image that can be recovered and used later for the purposes

Review: Disderi 3 Lens Robot

REVIEW

This camera is not only del i g h t f u l l y cu t e b u t i f t h e r o b o t ’ s i n n o ce n t l o o k d o e s n ’ t s e l l i t s e l f t o y o u t h e f a ct t h a t i t s e l l s o n e b a y f o r l e s s t h a n t he p r i ce o f a r o l l o f f i l m . If y o u r l u ck y y o u might get it, with free delivery, for as low as €1. B u t v a l u e f o r m o n e y , a n d t he r o b o t ’ s f a ce , a r e n o t t he m o s t a t t r a ct i v e e l e m e n t s o f t hi s l i t t l e plastic sampler. The spinning n o i s e o f t he s h u t t e r i s a v e r y s o o t h i n g so u n d a s t h e ca m e r a s h u t t e r m o v e s t h r o u g h i t s l e n ses, beginning with the mouth

TECHNIQUE

Sean O’Flaherty guides us through basic HDR using a single RAW file.

T h e D i s i d e r i ca m e r a s r a n g e co m e i n 2 , 3 o r 4 l e n s f o r m a t . T h i s p a r t i cu l a r l i t t l e p l a s t i c h e r o i s t he 3 l e n s ‘ r o b o t ’ m o d e l . A n a ct i o n sa m p l e r t h a t t a k e s 3 co n s e u t i v e i m a g e s o n a s i ng l e 3 5 m m f r a m e . It ’ s b u i l t f o r ca p t u r i n g m o m e n t s o f s p o r t i n g g r e a t n e ss , s i l l y b e h a v i o u r and providing a unique take on w h a t co u l d n o r m a l l y b e a v e r y boring image. T h e l a r g e r l e n s, i n t he mouth, is roughly half the frame and the two ‘eye’ lenses take up a b o u t a qu a r t e r o f a f r a m e e a ch .

To celebrate the recent World Pinhole Day we look at shooting without a lens.

Homemade Pinholes Dippold Pinhole One of the many variety of pinhole cameras made from the instructions of flickr user dippold.

Disderi 3 Lens Robot

Picture: Glimpse of Sunset Photographer: Louis Bosco Camera: Diana F+ Film: Agfa Precisa CT 100 Flickr: midnight-specials

Feature: Pinhole Photography

Life without the lens World Pinhole Photography Day took place on 24th April 2011 and to celebrate we’re taking a look at this unique form of light capturing and some of the homemade cameras used to make pinhole photographs. Pinhole photography can be viewed by some photographers as a primiteive means of making a photograph. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Many photographers experiment with making their own pinhole cameras to bet ter understand the process of capturing light and producing quality phogoraphy. A pinhole camera is a simple camera that doesn’t use a lens. Although there are modifications you can do to body caps in order to create a digital pinhole, they are for the most part film cameras, or photographic paper cameras. It is essentially a light proof box with a pin sized hole in one side which allows light to be captured on a piece of film or photographic paper. The photographic paper ver sions tend ot be larger than medium format or 35mm versions. They also require a changing bag or darkroom for loading and unloading. The actual pinhole means

Picture: Deer (Legs and Ribs) Photographer: Xenia Elizabeth Camera: Holga 120N Film: Lomography Color Negative Film 100 Flickr: xenializ 20

a n d g o i n g a r o u n d i n a cl o ck w i se motion. T h e ca m e r a ha s a s m a l l f o l d up viewfinder on top. It’s a simple, plastic frame but really t h e r e ’ s n o p o i n t t o i t . T hi s ca me r a i s n ’ t f o r f r a m i n g o r co m p o sition. This robot is for pointi n g a t s o m e t h i n g a n d hi t t i n g t he b r i g h t o r a n g e s hu t t e r b u t t o n , r e l e a s i n g t h e w h i r l o f t h e s hu tt e r b l a d e w o r k i n g o n ca p t u r i n g three moments in one frame. I n s i d e t h e ca m e r a i t ’ s p l a i n and simple. The film loads as n o r m a l w i t h m o s t 3 5 m m ca m e r a s . T he f i l m w i n d e r , w i n d s o n a frame at a time and stops when t h e ca m e r a i s r e a d y t o s h o o t . This however does not allow for multiple exposures. O n ce t h e e n t i r e f i l m h a s b e e n e x p o se d t h e r e w i n d s y s tem is simple and is, again, in keeping with the style of most 3 5 m m ca m e r a s . O n t h e b o t t o n o f t h i s l i t t l e t o y i s a s m a l l r ewind button simply press to rel e a s e t he f i l m a n d r e w i n d u s i n g t h e o r a n g e l e v e r o n t o p o f t he ca m e r a . T h e r e ’ s a l s o f i l m co u n t e r o n t o p o f t h e ca m e r a i n t h e m i d d l e o f t he f o l d u p v i e w f i n d e r . A h a n d y w r i st s t r a p i s a tt a ch e d t o t h e b o t t o m co r n e r o f t h e ca m e r a m a k i n g i t g r e a t f o r s w i n g i n g a r o u n d i n t he s u m m e r time. The one thing not to forget, t h o u g h , a b o u t t h i s l i t t l e p o ck e t ca m e r a i s t ha t i t i s a t o y . T he lens is fixed and there’s no focu s i n g . I t a si m p l e p o i n t a n d s h o o t ca m e r a w i t h t h e f u n g i mm i c k o f a ct i o n sa m p l i n g w h i ch i s g r e a t f u n w he n s h o o t i n g sport or even a person lifting a glass of beer.

This toy camera has it all, per sonality, two eyes and a big mouth.

Fox developing chrome NEWS

The planned movie about the last roll of Kodachrome to be processed has reverted back to Fox. News of the movie was widely reported after DreamWorks picked up the movie but, as detailed in Variety, Fox 2000 had a ‘first-look’ deal with, Night at t he Museum director, Shawn Levy, who was behind the pitch. Fox initially passed on the movie but following the news that DreamWorks had snapped it up they changed their mind. The movie itself is reported to be based around the story of a father and son who make a long journey to Dwayne’s Pho to, in Kansas, the last place to process Kodachrome. Kodachrome was produced from 1935-2009 but was discontinued as interest in the Kodak product steadily dropped with the rise of digital photography.

Picture: Robert Couse-Baker

In late 2010 Dwayne’s Photo announ ced that it was no lon ger goi ng to process the film. Dwayne’s was the last shop in the world to discontinue the service of processing the film, due to a lack of chemicals for the process. Earlier last year, it was announced that the last ever

produced roll of the Kodak film was shot by Steve McCurry. Many photographers have fond memories of the film but the rise of digital photography has led to its demand disappearing. For one, the movie sits back in the development tank at 20th Century Fox.

Meiselas, Alec Soth, Mikhael Subotzky and writer Ginger Strand embark on what will no doubt be one of the most mem orable pieces of documentary

photography in the last few years. The team are aiming to work together and engage with the local communities they meet along the way. Earlier this month photographer Christopher Anderson pulled out of the trip due to a death of a close friend. You can follow their trip at: (postcards.magnumphotos.com) ( f l i c k r . c o m / g r o u p s / postcardsfromamerica) (postcardsfromamerica.tumblr. com)

Magnum on the road A small group of, the always inspirational, Magnum Photo A gency photographers have set off on the first in their series of road trips around the United States called ‘Postcards from A merica’. The first trip, in this unique documentary e xperiment, takes place from May 12th - 26th 2011. The five photographers and their accompanying writer are on a journey from San An tonio to Oakland. Photographers Paolo Pel legrin, Jim Goldberg, Susan

Impossible!

The Impossible Project have fi - new components, this magnifinally released the most eagerly cent film delights with colorful anticipated film in the instant images that are reminiscent of photography world. PX 680 the finest characteristics of the Color Shade First Flush Edition legendary Polaroid materials. is the T h e latest ad Imposdition to s i b l e the Polaproject roid film began in that Imlate 2008 possible when 10 Project former have reemployinvented. ees of Polathe Poroid 600 l a r o i d camera compau s e r s ny, with now have a com t h e i r b i n e d first opexperiportuence in nity to instant s h o o t f i l m color Po of 500 laroids years, set since Po - PX 680 Color Shade First Flush Edition is available online at http://www.the-impossible-project.com/ out to do laroid themselves ceased pro - the impossible and let Polaroid duction of its films. live. The First Flush Edition of A packet of the new PX 680 the PX 680 Color Shade film fills Color Shade First Flush Edition the gap left by the legendary, by contains 8 exposures. now hard to find Polaroid 600 Users should be aware that film and introduces a magical the new film is very sensitive new color palette within the to light for the first few secclassic white frame. Utilizing a onds after it comes out of the completely new formula with all camera.

FEATURES

If the walls could talk Sh o o t i n g graffiti has led this photo g ra ph e r to discover that Silesian c u l t u re i s painted on its walls. Wo rd s a n d Photos: Paddy M u r phy

This photo was taken with a Lomo Smena Symbol loaded with Solution VX 200 film in Zabrze, in the Silesia region of Poland. Since moving to Kato wice, a busy industrialised city in the south of Poland, not far from the wonderfully beautiful K raków, I’ve become obsessed with the graffiti culture here and photograph it every chance

word game Hangman. There is wide opinion that graffiti and street art are, for the most part, a nuisance. If you want to find some real art painted on walls then you need to go in search of it. But therein lies the fun. Everyone enjoys the hunt. The serious graffiti artists, sick of being associated with football hooligans and branded as nothing more than vandals turned their attention to trains, train depots and the concrete walls that line the tracks of Poland to hone their skills. The photo was taken in a smaller city in the Katowice metropolis in a place called Zabzre. Zabrze (pronounced Zab-jza) isn’t a well-known place outside of Poland, indeed it’s not all that well known even in Poland. Ask someone that isn’t from around there and all they’ll be able to tell you is that it’s got a coalmine tourist attraction and a fairly average foot ball team. What most people don’t know though is that every year a local priest gives over a few walls close to his church to graffiti artists from the area. I came across this wall while searching for some interesting tags on the Internet, so I headed up to Zabrze by train. Along the way I got to see the vast amount of graffiti on the concrete walls that line the tracks. I al so saw a few of the massive abandoned coalmines and factories that creates the stereotype that Silesia suffers from the non-Silesian parts of Poland. They serve as a stark reminder of the failed communist regime. Huge industry was, and

still is, a huge part of the Silesian identity. The area still employs around 100,000 coalmin ers to keep the country’s power supply going. The girl in the photo con trasts with the industrial background of Silesia. We can see three mine shaft towers and two other service towers loom ing in the distance behind her. The third shaft tower is in the far right corner and is very dis tant. The image shows Silesia’s industrial image clearly and it is further emphasised with the paintings of a gear wheel and shaft wheel in the foreground. Most of the buildings in the background can be made out but not so much that we can safely identify each one. We can, however, assume that they are all concerned with indus -

found in the working-class ar eas of the world. There’s a strength of community here that we would have been familiar with when we saw the coalminers of 1980s Britain. The Iron Lady may have brought them all to a halt, but on our TV screens at the time we witnessed a rallying of the troops and a coming together of the coalmining communities that had everyone calling for Thatcher’s head and supporting the plight of those unfortunate working class heroes. Now, many of the old coalmining communities of Britain have declined into ar eas plagued by unemployment, housing problems and alcohol ism. There’s no sign of that happening in Poland but if the mines were closed down, in the near future, it would have a detrimental effect on the region. This image tells the rest of Poland that, yes ok, we may have a huge amount of industry, but we’re still a stronghold of Polish tradition, custom and values. We have industry and we’re bloody proud of it but we also have youth, beauty, intelligence and charisma. Traditionally, the typi cal Silesian dress incorporates blue, white and red, this time the artist has chosen the typical style of Silesian dress but cho sen to paint the woman in the red and white of Poland. Sile sians are extremely proud and protective of their image, cul ture and separate dialect, but they’re also immensely proud of being Poles. The history of Silesia is short but nonetheless complicated. There is a push to gain

‘‘ They serve as a stark reminder

of the failed communist regime

try, coalmining and the region’s other great industry, steel production. Nowhere in the background do we see any dwellings for the workers and citizens of Silesia. This for me is one of the reasons as to why it’s such a wonderfully powerful and emotional image. This Silesian woman is dressed in her traditional Silesian costume, each Polish region has their own and if you’ve ever drank the Polish beer, Zywiec, then you’ll al ready have seen the traditional costume of Silesia. The image shows that while industry has become such a nor mal part of everyday life, since the first coalmines were opened over 200 years ago, there is a sense of pride here that is only

’’

Coalminer

autonomy from Warsaw but Silesians are not calling for a separation from Poland. The red and white costume shows that first and foremost we’re Polish and Silesian. Next to this image on the same wall, the image of the coalminer, above, can be found. Like a fool, I didn’t get the artist’s name and the Internet didn’t surrender any informa tion. The imag e will be painted over very soon when the priest invites artists to come and repaint them for the following year. I plan to attend the event and hopefully the artist will paint something just as poignant and aesthetically pleasing as this. As for a name, well, I men tioned the Silesian dialect earlier. It follows the grammatical rules of Polish, uses Czech symbols and has an equally im portant German influence. The Silesian for girl is ‘dziołcha’, Silesia is ‘Sląsk’ in Polish, but ‘Ślůsk’ in Silesian, so let’s call her Ślůnska Dziołcha (pro nounced Slon-ska Djoe-ha).

Paddy Murphy

Paddy Murphy is an Irish writer and photographer living in Poland. He shoots on a Lomo Sme na Symbol, Holga 135 & Nikon F70. flickr.com/spudmurf 9

Tim Kirman www.penguinmania.tk

Aspiring To Be Bubbles

Girl Reflec ted

Boy Reflec ted

Half Full

Watching

Elec tric

Ladder of Light

Winter Stars

Self Por trait

FACT BOX: N a m e : T i m K i rm a n Nationality: British L o c a t i o n : K i n ca r i n e , F i f e W e b s i t e : w w w . p e n g u i n m a n i a .t k Favourite Camera: Holga CF or Canon 450D F a v o u r i t e F i l m : 1 2 0 L u ck y B & W film or Fujifilm 64 Tungsten 120 Favourite thing to Photograph: Ra n d o m o b j e ct s u p cl o s e a n d personal Person you would most like to Photograph: Marion Davies Inspiration: Salvador Dali and Cindy Sherman Interests outside photography: A RG s , P u z z l e s , F i l m , J a p a n , J a s p e r Fforde and Thursday Next

am currently in love with black & white photography. H opefully this will explain my choice of photographs. Many of the images I have chosen are very conceptual, in their design, drawing on their use of lighting to create the fi nal effect. The resulting images are quite abstract, contrasting light against dark or vice versa.

Almost all of these images where taken using my Canon EOS 450D with a Sigma 50mm f2.8 EX attached. The only ma nipulation applied after shooting has been de-saturating the original RAW files, adjusting the contrast and tweaking ex posure times. I find the resulting images take on a completely different

form when presented in black & white. ‘Boy Reflected’ (a self por trait) and ‘Girl Reflected’ are my favourite images in the series. Reflections taken against a large perspex box full of eiderdown feathers. The result ing images are quite effective and the experiment certainly paid off. 19

GALLERY

P i c t u r e : D e e r ( L e g s a n d Ri b s ) Photographer: Xenia Elizabeth Camera: Holga 120N F i l m : L o m o g r a p hy C o l o r N e g a t i v e F i lm 100 Flickr: xenializ 20

Picture: Glimpse of Sunset Photographer: Louis Bosco Camera: Diana F + Film: Agfa Precisa CT 100 Flickr: midnight-specials 21

P i c t u r e : # 6 S t a r b u ck s S ce n e - P a r i s P h o t o g r a p h e r : L a n c e Ro t h s t e i n Camera: Moskva 5 Film: Ilford Delta 3200 F l i c k r : l a n ce p ho t o 22

Picture: Yahtzee Photographer: Robert O’Duill Camera: Nikon D60 Flickr: Robert O’Duill

P i c t u r e : E r a s m u sb r u g P h o t o g r a p h e r : S t e p h e n E u s t a ce Camera: Nikon D40X F l i c k r : s e u st a ce 2 0 0 3

Picture: Millennium Stadium, Cardiff Photographer: David McNally Camera: Nikon D60 Flickr: david_mcn

Picture: Parts of a Plane P h o t o g r a p h e r : C h r i s t o s Christou Camera: Lomo LC-A F i l m : A g f a P r e ci s a C T 1 0 0 F l i c k r : 2 5 t hc 26

Picture: Montmartre Vs Arche De Triomphe Photographer: Nicola Clark Camera: Lomo LC-A Film: Lomography X-pro Chrome 100 Flickr: kenickie56 27

P i c t u r e : I f I W a l k H a r d E n o u g h M a y b e I Can Fade Away P h o t o g r a p h e r : S cr i b e Camera: Rollei 35TE F i l m : L o m o g r a p hy C o l o r N e g a t i v e F i l m 100 F l i c k r : s cr i b e 28

Picture: Untitled Photographer: Pollinisation Camera: Lomo Smena 8M Film: Kodak Ektachrome 64T Flickr: pollinisation 29

Life without the lens C a p t u r i ng light through a pin s i ze d h ole is far more tha n just a p r i m i t ive technique. Words: Paul M u r phy World Pinhole Photography Day took place on 24th April 2011 and to celebrate we’re taking a look at this unique form of light capturing and some of the homemade cameras used to make pinhole photographs. Pinhole photography can be viewed by some photographers as a primitive means of making a photograph. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Many photographers experiment with making their own pinhole cameras to bet ter understand the process of capturing light and producing quality photography. A pinhole camera is a simple camera that doesn’t use a lens. Although there are modifications you can do to body caps in order to create a digital pinhole, they are, for the most part, film cameras or photographic paper cameras. They are essentially light proof boxes with a pin-sized hole in one side which allows light to be captured on a piece of film or photographic paper. The photographic paper ver sions tend to be larger than me dium format or 35mm versions. They also require a changing bag or darkroom for loading and unloading. The actual pinhole means

that the camera has a very small aperture, which should be about f100 or smaller. Although, with many homemade pinhole cameras. It’s dif -

Picture: Dominic Alves Flickr: dominicspics

bit of math to find out the correct f-stop of the pinhole and the different exposure times needed in different light. But due to the larg e f-num -

‘‘ Essentailly a light proof box

with a pin sized hole in one side

ficult to make a camera to a specific aperture. Using a regular sewing pin you need to find a good way to measure the pin hole diameter. Once the size of the diameter and the distance from the pin hole to the film, or paper, has been calculated, it’s easy with a

’’

ber of a pinhole camera, expo sures will often encounter reci procity failure. Once exposure time has exceeded abo ut 1 sec ond for film or 30 seconds for paper, the breakdown in linear response of the film or paper to intensity of illumination by using longer exposures must be

compensated for. For those not mathemati cally inclined there is a wealth of knowledge and experience available online that can help in calculating the correct measurements for constructing a pinhole camera and indeed exposure guidelines. Many of these guides will provide a simple way of using a regular light meter to calculate the exposure time for the high f-number. A simple online search for ‘pinhole calculator’ should yield enough results to help con struct a perfect pinhole camera. But the on ly way to truly get a pinhole camera to work as well as possible is to experiment and experiment. The main characteristics of this type of photography are soft images, long exposure times and a great way to learn about camera optics. So, as you can see, this once thought obsolete method of early photography can easily be used to move quickly along a learning curve with image capturing and it can also be used for very creative purposes. Pinhole cameras, after all can be made out of anything, from old camera bodies, film canisters and matchboxes to fruit and vegetables.

Homemade Pinholes Dippold Pinhole One of the many variety of pinhole cameras made from the instructions of flickr user dippold.

Picture: Nicky

Ollie the Obscura Ollie is a coconut pinhole camera. The hole is in one of his eyes. The hat covers the film access panel.

Picture: Thomas Anderson

Picasso Pinhole A multi pinhole camera, one in one of the noses and one in the lid, made from a bath soap tin.

Picture: Crunchy Footsteps

Polaroid Pinhole Instant pinholes are a real treat and polaroid conversions and modifications can make it happen.

Picture: ian

Matchbox Pinhole Made using the easy to follow instructions found on http://www. matchboxpinhole. com/

Picture: Crunchy Footsteps

Cigarette Pinhole Boxes are always good for pinholes. This camera is made out of a box of American Spirit cigarettes.

Picture: Crunchy Footsteps

Pumpkin Pinhole Inspired by Eric Renner’s bell pepper pinhole camera experiments, this pinhole is a real pumpkin.

Picture: Robbie Sproule

Picture: Stefan Powell Flickr: duchamp

P i cture: Kevin Dooley F l i ckr: pagedooley

Picture: Stuart Heath Flickr: misteraitch

P i cture: Donna Barber F l i ckr: dybarber

Picture: Paul Bowman Flickr: bowmanpics

P i cture: Alexandre Vialle F l i ckr: Олександр

TECHNIQUE

HDR H D R P h otography - Increase your d y n a m i c range using just one R AW f i l e. Words and Photos: S ean Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; F l a h e rty Although High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging, as we know it, appears to be a rela tively new concept its humble beginnings can be dated back as far as 1850. Frenchman Gustave Le Gray is considered to be the pioneer of using multiple exposures to overcome the problem of a tooextreme range of luminance or tones. He first used the technique with his seascapes to control luminance, combining two neg atives, one exposure for the sky and another longer exposure for the sea, to produce one image in positive. There are two more com monly used techniques to pro duce HDR images. Firstly, using multiple exposures of a single scene or bracketing, which we will discuss in a future issue, and secondly, the use of one single RAW file and a RAW Converter. Although using one RAW file will increase the dynamic, or tonal, range of your image, it is not considered to be a full HDR image. The main rea son being that there is a larger tonal range achievable with the

use of three separate exposures of your scene. In this guide we will be using the single RAW file technique and using the cameras histogram as an expo sure guide. Bracketing your exposures leads to a higher tonal range but you can still increase the tonal value of your image using a single file and this method is great for people who are not fa miliar with HDR photography. For this exercise a Canon 450D with the kit lens, 1855mm, a tri-pod and a remote shutter release was used. The

remote is not essentia l but can be useful for eliminating cam era shake caused by pressing the on-camera shutter release. I used an aperture value of f.16, ISO 100 and a shutter speed of 1/20 for the initial image that we will be working with. I tend to use these set parameters for my aperture and ISO values for all my landscape work, with the shutter speed changing depending on the light. I do this to control my image as best I can, with the small aperture (f.16) allowing

‘‘ HDR photography can be

dated as far back as 1850

’’

for a very large depth of field, and the low ISO helping to keep noise or grain to a minimum. Firstly, set your camera to RAW, then put your camera on the tri-pod, attach the remote shutter release and compose your image. Once you have the picture composed as you see fit, with yo ur settings as mentioned before, its time to shoot. This is where the histogram comes in to play. I won’t go into too much detail about the histogram in order to keep this HDR process as simple as possible.

I used a technique known as exposing to the right. As you can see in the picture above, this basically means that I push the data on my histogram as far right as possible, without clipping the right hand side which would result in blown highlights. This allows for less noise in the darker areas and a greater use of the colour spectrum. By not clipping the right hand side there is more information in the image that can be recovered and used later for the purposes of HDR.

The first time I used this technique I looked at the back of my camera a saw a bad, washed-out looking image. But if you ignore the image and rely on the histogram, your image, after post-processing, will be far superior. Once you have an image that you’re happy to work with, it’s time to start the post-processing. For this, we will combine two versions of the same image, with different adjustments, and blending them together to one file. To do this I’m using Photoshop’s RAW Converter. If 40

you are new to RAW files and have Photoshop this converter can be obtained from the Adobe website. When you open your RAW image in Photoshop you should see something like the image above. With this first file we are going to expose the im age for the clouds and sky. The amount that you will have to reduce the exposure will vary from image to image. Depending on a number of factors but mainly how you yourself want the end image to look. As I mentioned earlier,

‘‘ Ignore the image,

rely on the histogram

’’

because I exposed my histogram, t op right of the convert er’s window, to the right without clipping, there is more information contained within to recover. You can see in the previous screenshot that I had to reduce my exposure by -1.05, set my brightness to +85 and contrast of +55. There is a wide range of other options to use in the converter, I mainly use the recovery and contrast sliders when adjusting for the sky but you can adjust the many other sliders and variables until you

are happy with how your image looks. When you are happy with how the image is looking click the ‘Open Image’ button and your file will open as a new Photoshop document. Next, we need to adjust the exposure and white balance for the foreground layer. Once you have opened the first file with the RAW converter, go back and open the RAW file again. This time you can see from the image above that I had to increase my exposure by only +.05, but I set my recovery to

‘‘ Remember, always

expose to the right

21. The br ightness and contrast values remain the same and I also, slightly, increased the blacks. I then added a small amount of sharpness. Normally I leave those adjustments for later, as well as contrast and colours. Once you have your second image click ‘Open Image’ again. Now that you have the two variation’s open in Photoshop, its time to combine them and finish the i mage. With the move tool selected drag the second image as a layer 42

on to the first image. Hold down shift and let go of the mouse button, this will place the layer on top of the other dead centre. Next we need to apply the sky to the foreground layer. To do this we need to apply a layer mask to the top layer. Then, with the gradient tool selected, draw a straight line from the top of the document to about half way down, depending on how much you want to reveal. Very rarely, however, will this straight line lead to the desired look, so you might need to do a little adding or subtracting

’’

from the mask, depending on your scene. I usually use a large diameter brush with soft edges, and a flow of about 15%, and ‘paint’ in the parts of the image that the line, used with the gradient tool, didn’t bring out in the image. When you’re happy with the blending, duplicate the layers and combine one of each. Next, add some colour. Create a new adjustment layer and choose ‘selective colour’. In the adjustments panel, play around with the sliders for each colour

value and choose the best re sult. This gives you much more control over the saturation. Then to add sharpness, with the layer selected, go to the channels panel. Click on the ‘blue’ channel, then ‘ctrl’ click to make a selection. Select the blue channel so as to only sharpen certain areas of the image. Next hit ctrl+shift+i to invert the selection and ctrl+h to hide. Open the unsharp mask dialogue box, zoom to 100% so you can better see the results, apply a radius of 1.0, in this case I set my amount to 120%.

Finally, for contrast, add a brightness/contrast adjustment layer. This part is also down to how you want the end image to look. I only added a small amount to this image, but it had a big effect. Now your HDR image is complete. Remember, always expose to the right where possible & trust your histogram. If you found this guide use ful, then we’d like to see your images. So please send them to HDR@viewfindermag.com so we can see how you got on.

REVIEW

Disderi 3 Lens Robot

The Disideri cameras range comes in 2, 3 or 4 lens format. Thi s particular little plastic hero is the 3 lens ‘robot’ model. An action sampler that takes 3 consecutive images on a sin gle 35mm frame. It’s built for capturing moments of sport ing greatness, silly behavior and providing a unique take on what could normally be a very boring image. The larger lens, in the mouth, is roughly half the frame and the two ‘eye’ lenses take up about a quarter of a frame each. 44

This camera is not only de lightfully cute and if the robot’s innocent look doesn’t sell itself to you the fact that they go on eBay for less than the price of a roll of film will. If your lucky you could get it, with free de livery, for as low as €1. But value for money, and the robot’s face, are not the most attractive elements of this little plastic sampler. The spinning noise of the shutter is a very soothing sound as the camera shutter moves through its lenses, beginning with the mouth

and going around in a clockwise motion. The camera has a small fold up viewfinder on top. It’s a simple, plastic frame but really there’s no poin t to it. This camera isn’t for framing or compo sition. This robot is for point ing at something and hitting the bright orange shutter button, releasing the whirl of the shutter blade working on capturing three moments in one frame. Inside the camera it’s plain and simple. The film loads as normal with most 35mm camer as. The film winder, winds on a frame at a time and stops when the camera is ready to shoot. This however does not allow for multiple exposures. Once the entire film has been exposed the rewind system is simple and is, again, in keeping with the style of most 35mm cameras. On the bottom of this little toy is a small rewind button, simply press to release the film and rewind using the or ange lever on top of the camera. There’s also a film counter on top of the camera, in the middle. A handy wrist strap is attached to the bottom corner of the camera ma king it great for swinging around in the summer time. The one thing not to forget, though, about this little pocket camera is that it is a toy. The lens is fixed and there’s no fo cusing. It a simple point and shoot camera with the fun gimmick of action sampling which is great fun when shooting movement like skiing or lift ing a glass of beer and or even a very obscure self portrait.

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Submission Guidelines 1. By submitting an image to the magazine, you give us permis sion to use that image on our website and in our magazine. 2. Pictures must be at least 300dpi and at least 1000 pixels on the shortest side. 3. Pictures can be taken on any camera, analogue or digital. 4. If submi tting analogue work please have the camera and film type included in either the metadata, tags, or caption.

5. You submission may be refused without reason, as due to the nature of the publication we cannot contact everyone in dividually to explain why work was not accepted. 6. We cannot pay photogra phers for their work; any mon ey earned from the Magazine is immediately put back into im proving the magazine and the accompanying podcast. 7. You can only submit your own work. Work that is found

to have been taken from some one else will not be accepted. 8. By submitting a photo you are assuring Viewfinder that you are the sole copyright owner of the photograph and as such should any question about ownership arrive after publication of the image you are accepting full liability and res ponsibil ity if it turns out that you are not the copyright owner of the photograph.

Source: flickr.com/nesster

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