Pinhole photography
The 30th of April was Worldwide pinhole day.
Along with a few other photographers, I went to the Barbican in London to shoot some pinhole.
My pinhole is an Ondu multi-format 120 film camera which can shoot in 3 different formats, 6x6, 6x9 and 6x12. I usually stick to 6x6 or 6x9.
The day turned out to be a disaster for me, nearly all the images were grossly underexposed. I was shooting Ilford SFX 200 with a red filter.
Obviously the reason for the underexposure was that I miscalculated the times for the red filter. Also using a standard light meter that only goes to f32, meant having to calculate for f160, which for me was a lot of faffing about.
I know there are light meter apps but I have been weary of using them as the reading never seems to be the same as my sekonic meter but thought I'd finally try one and if it didn't work I'd probably give up on shooting pinhole.
The one I settled on is just called ‘Light meter’ but it does allow me to set the aperture to f160. It also has a ND filter setting so hopefully no more calculations.
The first chance I got to use this new app and the Ondu was on a day trip to the Isle of Sheppey. The Isle is off the Northeast coast of Kent and has some interesting war architecture around the coastline along with flat open salt marsh.
The first place I visited was the old Elmley RSPB nature reserve, this is now run by the owners of the farm and as such has glamping tents and modern shepard's huts for holiday makers. The cost to walk around the 3300 acres is £8 per person which as you can guess can't be done in a day.
Having been to the site many times before I had a good idea where I might get some goodish pinhole images.
I made my way down to the River Swale which divides Sheppey and the mainland as there is always something interesting down there.
The first shot was a derelict old wooden pier. Using the app I got a reading of 2 seconds with the filter, I think the exposure was pretty much spot on.
Side note all the pinhole images were shot on Ilford Delta 400
On this particular day I shoot 8 images and nearly all came out with correct exposures.
One new problem I encountered was that I wasn't getting close enough to the subjects. As you can see for the images above, I realised this was problem once I developed the film.
I figured out quite quickly that the issue was, I wasn't using the sighting guides on the pinhole correctly.
Day two was to try out some of the things I'd learnt and see if they would work. This trip to Sheppey was one to capture the industrial side of the Isle and was to be a linear walk of around 7 miles, this meant a trip down by train.
I got the train to Swale station which is on the mainland and then walked across to the Isle via the old kingsferry road and railway lift bridge. The centre part lifts to 120 feet to allow ships to navigate the river Swale.
Once across I dropped down on to the sea wall to walk beside the Swale until it meets the river Medway.
By now I was starting to feel as though I could trust the light meter app and how I was using the sight guides to compose the images. A few feet on I could see a nice sweep of the Sheppey crossing and captured the image above.
At first I thought this was an old wind pump but I don't think it is, the piece close to the top looks like some type of navigational sign. One thing I do know is, I got close enough to get a decent image.
Between here and the point at ladies hole point there wasn't a great deal to photography. I did pass a sewerage works with its pipes directed into they river but it was too far away for a pinhole shot. Although I did capture them on the Olympus XA3, there was also an abundance of wildlife, rabbits, hares, stoats and a Hen harrier which I disturbed having its lunch.
At ladies hole point, it all became very industrial with pipelines going out into the river and derelict hulks. Most of this seems to be from a bygone age and just left to decay.
One bright spot coming into Queenborough was a boat made up to look like a pirates ship.
So ended another good day shooting pinhole. Once developed every image was again well exposed, some of the compositions were off but that was me not picking the right view.
So far I had shot in the South and West of the Isle, the next trip would be to the North.
Like most of Kent, the North of the Isle has been fortified over the years from Dutch invaders in the 17th century to both world wars.
One such defence I wanted to get to was an old pillbox that was once on the cliffs but with erosion and the cliffs collapsing it is now in the sea.
Getting to this particular pillbox was dependent on a low tide but it also adds a problem that the cliffs are made up of London clay on the beach. London clay is a horrible sticky substance and is like walking on sticky toffee.
Getting to the box meant a 1/2 mile trudge along this and I got stuck in it a few times.
This was as close as I wanted to get, as all the clay in front was a sticky mess.
I also found part of a sound mirror on the beach. Sound mirrors were an early form of radar and were built between 1916 & 1930s. Here is an article explaining how they worked.
The final pillbox I found was near Shellness and had this smart mural of a Hen harrier on it.
My final place I wanted to shoot was at St. Thomas the Apostle church in the small hamlet of Harty in the east of the Isle.
The church is thought to date from late 11th to early 12th century.
Most of the days I was on Sheppey it was bright and hot, and even with ISO 400 most of the shots were about 2-5 seconds, except for the church interior, this was about 3 1/2 minutes with reciprocity failure.
Overall I had 3 good days shooting pinhole on the Isle. I know there is plenty more to see and photograph there and with the time put in shooting qthe Ondu I feel a lot more confident using it.
So I think I will be sticking with pinhole for the foreseeable future.
Love the sewage pipe and pillbox shots best.
Interesting and fun read, thanks!