Monday, January 3, 2011

Perfect DIY Project to start your new year:

Solargraphy
Tracking the suns movement across the sky over several seasons through slow, ultra long term pinhole photography.

From Ollipekka Kangas, a slow pinhole photographer:
"Basically solarigraphic camera is a pinhole camera, very slow one. These pinhole photographs taken with a lensless pinhole camera with a extra long exposure. I use black&white paper which is 5-10 ASA. Exposure time can be very long, in some photos up to six months. Usually average camera is hidden in city for one to two months. The picture will appear without developing photographic paper with any kind of chemicals. Exposured paper is scanned in darkness and developed in Photoshop. All the cameras are very low tech, cheap boxes, canisters or film cans. This method in is antidope for digital photographic madness. I can take only like 5 pictures in month.
Sun draws many interesting traces in photos, you can really see the time passing by. Some times camera is tilted by passerby or tape just goes loose. Double exposures or traces of humidity can be seen in photos."


Solargraphs trace the seasons by exposing a sheet of photosensitive paper to sunlight for up to a year. The bright arches in this image mark the sun’s path across the sky.
 
Steps for doing this yourself:
  1. Make a simple pinhole camera. (a lightproof container with a small hole in one side)
    Many guides can be found online, wiki-how article is here
  2. Put in some photo paper (the kind you make prints with using an enlarger)
  3. Secure the pinhole camera to some fixed location
  4. Retrieve it after a few months and scan the resulting image 
    Be sure to secure your pinhole camera firmly to something that doesn’t move.

  • *Website: http://www.solargraphy.com/
    (it seems hit & miss currently. The java script is running into problems when you try to change pages)

We'll be setting one of these up when we move into our new house next month. Looks like a relatively easy, fun & interesting project.

Also, Happy New Year all. Hope the holidays were good for everyone & the coming year is a great one.
We'll be getting back to more regular posting again.