Hello Guy, Do you have any idea yet where and when in Montreal the print will be exhibited. I would like to see it "au naturel".
Regards, Bogdan Guy Glorieux wrote: > > > I may have missed an update... > > How did the Canadian Hotel room pinhole picture > > and the "Great Wall" pinhole projects turn out? > > > > -Jeff > > No Jeff, you didn't miss any postings on the Wyndham Montreal Hotel > Giant Pinhole picture... I've been quite busy since April 28, working > on this project and other priorities, and I have not had much time to > report. > > In a nutshell, it's worked beyond our expectations. We have a 12 1/2 > feet wide by 8 1/2 feet high pinhole image of incredible beauty, > probably one of the largest ever made in modern pinhole history. > > Thanks to the support of Wyndham Montreal, we were able to have a 10th > floor room for the WPPD weekend facing one of the most impressive > landscape of Montreal, right in the centre of the cultural area. We > started setting up our equipment in the room early Saturday afternoon > and worked to make the room completely light tight. By midnight we had > everything pretty well completed, all we had to do was to lower the 3 > strips of 50" by 8 1/2 feet photographic paper (kindly supplied by > Ilford Imaging Canada as a full roll of 100 feet) down the frame we had > built and open the shutter, to officially start our WPPD2 experiment. > > We chose a 40" focal length to get as wide angle as possible on the > landscape (the image covers from Place Ville Marie to Place des Arts, > with the Mount Royal in the background, for anyone familiar with > Montreal). We did a bit of a "backswing" with the frame to extend > coverage of the landscape on the side of Place Ville Marie. > > There was some question over what diameter pinhole to use. The optimal > would have been 1.34 mm giving us F/755, much to small given the > overcast weather expected for April 28. In the end, I chose 1.8mm > diameter, giving us F/564. This is only a few minutes exposure even on > paper on a bright sunny day, but under overcast conditions and with > reciprocity playing its trick, I knew that this would be relatively > safe. > > In the end, a snow storm forced us to close the shutter around 12:45 on > Sunday, earlier than we had anticipated, in order to avoid a white out > of the image. While the tests strips we had placed on the extremities > of the frame suggested then that we might be underexposed, the centre, > by that time was quite over exposed. I guess we had forgotten that we > would experience very heavy vignetting with such a short focal length > (further compounded by reciprocity failure at the extremities). > > By Monday morning we were all packed up and leaving the hotel to move on > to the next stage: the processing of the paper negative. Given the > facilities we were using, we couldn't get started until late evening and > we also had to build handmade processing tanks (5 x10 feet) from 2x4 > lumber and heavy gauge plastic. We used 100 litters of developer and > fix (way too much in retrospect) to fill the trays and unrolled each > strip of 50" x 8 1/2 feet into the trays, one after the other, out into > a quick stop bath and then into the fix. The negatives were then washed > thoroughly and installed back to dry on same the wood frame we had used > for exposure at the hotel. > > The result was just astounding. Imagine a 12 1/2 feet by 8 1/2 feet > negative image with incredible details in every areas of the image (you > can count the number of chairs on a hidden roof top sundeck of the > Museum of Contemporary Arts and see pretty well inside the buildings > closeby, enough to count how many chairs there are around the desks or > worktables). Every details of the architecture landscape are clearly > visible in the image but strangely distorted in some areas of the image > through wide angle expansion and in other areas through telephoto > compression. > > Because of the length of the time exposure (a little over 12 hrs), the > whole city looks unnaturally empty from the constant agitation > surrounding this area as if it had been deserted from all its > inhabitants after a major disaster. Only the buildings, the trees, the > sign and lamp posts and the cars parked on the street are visible with > incredible details. Very daunting. > > The next stage for us is to do a contact print of the paper negative > into a positive image. This is the trickiest part and we are still > working on tests strips. We need to illuminate an area 12.5 x 8.5 feet, > and there is about 7 stops density difference between the centre of the > image (closest to the pinhole) and the edges. At this stage, we are > working with a single lamp projector 15 feet above the print and centred > just above the zone of heaviest density. I let you imagine the fun of > changing contrast filtration between each tests...! The goal is to > avoid having to do any burning and dodging by carefully configuring the > way the light spreads over the image and to make 11x14 tests strips each > time we change the configuration. > > So far so good. We have substantially reduced the 7 stops gap between > the centre and the edges, but the last stop and a half is really hard to > tackle.... > > Once this is solved, we will do a practice run and then do the final > positive print in 3 copies. That should take place before the end of > the month if we can align all of our own individual schedules with the > schedule of availability of the studio where we are working. > > The final outcome promises to be grand. Imagine, two gigantic prints > from floor to ceiling extending almost 13 feet facing one another: one > positive one negative of the same image and showing a portion of the > Montreal landscape, rarely seen from all of us normally strolling on > ground level, with details going down to the number of rails on the > street sewer traps! > > Where next? First, we have to design frames that will hold prints that > size and match their natural beauty and then find a proper gallery to > host them. > > I would imagine we will show them first in Montreal. But I would also > hope that they will travel to galleries outside the country, in North > America, Europe of perhaps Japan. The toughest thing will be the find > grants to support that stage of its infant history... > > So, in a nutshell, this is the story. I will undoubtedly post the image > on the WPPD2 gallery, although it will only be a pale shadow of the real > thing. In the meantime, I have posted an image of the negative on its > drying rack with me on side as a way of gauging the scale of the image > on the Pinhole members' gallery. Hope you enjoy, > > Cheers, > > Guy > > _______________________________________________ > Post to the list as PLAIN TEXT only - no HTML > Pinhole-Discussion mailing list > Pinhole-Discussion@p at ??????? > unsubscribe or change your account at > http://www.???????/discussion/ -- __________________________________________________________________ Bogdan Karasek Montréal, Québec e-mail: bkara...@videotron.ca Canada "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen" "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence" Ludwig Wittgenstein ________________________________________________________________
