We started March off with a guest speaker, talking about pinhole photography and his style of work he creates. Gary Owens, a lecturer at the local college, West Lancashire College in Skelmersdale, was invited to come in to talk to the members. I'd say the majority of the members in the club, have either never heard of pinhole photography or have never used it. There was only a small handful of members, who have used or experimented with it.
Gary started off showing us the process of pinhole photography, how it works, how to expose for an image before taking it, telling us how he develops the film or paper. It was great to see the members engaging and asking question. Once Gary had finished explaining how the "how to do pinhole" talk, he moved on to showing us some of his home-made pinhole camera's. These ranged from old Tabaco tins, tea cadies, Pringles tube to a 360 degree Quality Street Tin. The camera the got the most shocked faces and giggles from the members, was a very clever book, turned into a pinhole camera, a hardback copy of Fifty Shades of Grey! Which lets be honest, is very clever, as about 80% of pinhole photographers use black and white film, which as any photographer knows, a black and white image, is just shades of grey.
Once Gary had finished showing us his small collection of many different pinhole cameras he has, he moved on to showing us his work. Gary caused a lot of controversy in the world of pinhole photography recently and was accused of it not being pinhole, but AI instead. Most pinhole photographers, will set there camera up at a location or in front of an object, remove the cover, take the picture and be done. And they'll be happy to have walked away with shots of landscapes, cityscapes or even still life. Now Gary is no different and is happy to do the same when he's in the mood, but a lot of Gary's work, could be described as surreal or imaginative. Gary likes to create small scenes, he has uses old family album, magazines and some AI figures to the scale of 1/12 (dollhouse size). Once he's got the figures cut out, he'll place them in a scene, which is a box with dollhouse wallpaper on the sides and furniture in it etc. The scenes he creates have themes, trapped rooms, the moon etc and once the set is ready, he places his camera in front of it and he gets the shot. He will convert them to digital to post online. Check out his work on his website
Gary inspire a few members from this night, who went home that night and bought pinhole camera's or lenses for their own camera's. This was fantastic to see and we can't wait to see the members results. Thanks for inspiring us Gary.
The following week, we had food photography down as our event. But in all fairness, the members said it's just still life, so we changed it up to still life and asked members to bring their own items in (but no members brought food turned up haha). We had 7 set ups, each with a different object or two on them and members could stay at a table and swap items or choose to move around and pick a different. We a table which had some tulips on it, a small diorama with some old cars, a large set up with full diving set, watches, camera's etc. Some set ups had LED lights and others without, so they could do some light painting on the set ups. The results from the still life images look brilliant and each member had a different way of taking it and editing. Was really nice to hear that members would be experimenting with still life at home.
The week after was a light painting and wire-wool photography night. This was a 3rd attempt at this this year, as every time this event was planned, the weather forecast said rain, so why should this week be any different? Well as luck had it, it didn't rain, but the night still didn't o as planned. Typical! Started of at home when I was gathering everything I needed for the night to go, the whisk fell to pieces. The wife was adamant I was NOT using hers, so that meant the wire-wool photography was off. Not to worry, I had other plans.
We had decided to meet at the church hall we hold our indoor events at, but wasn't expecting the car park to be so full. This made it difficult, so decided to head to the motorway bridge and start the night with some traffic trails, while we waited for our remaining members to arrive. Once everyone had arrived, I informed them all I had been busy and made some arrangements and organised for us to use the local multi-storey car park, so we could do some light painting on some cars. We headed off in convoy and arrived at the Concourse Shopping Centre, only to find the multi-storey had been closed early and we couldn't get in. This was disappointing to say the least. So we needed another backup plan and quick! We had decided to head to a local subway we knew, poorly lit, full of graffiti and long. Once we arrived, it was like everything was against us all night! The subway lights had been fixed and the subway it self and been cleaned. The graffiti still looked good though. So, we decided to stay there and make good of a bad situation. We headed to the end of the subway, where the lighting was poor (on the path leading to the subway) and got one of our younger members to just wave a light sabre or two, while the other members, photographed him on a long exposure. The results, mystical!
The final week of March, saw the members back into doors for some Rim Lighting. This requires having an object placed in front of a black background, with light(s) either side of the black background facing forward. This will then wrap the light around the rim of the object, causing a silhouette. You can then add addition light if you wanted, to light the front of the object, building up the lights up this way, gives you a product style shot. But if you want to just have the rim lighting shown up on the object, then just don't light up the front.
Some members did this, while others lit it up with their torch on their phones. This night went down very well and was more popular than we thought it would be. Again, the images speak for themselves.
Guest Speaker - Gary Owens
Still Life Photography
Light Painting & Traffic Trails
Rim Lighting
