Solargraphy

SolargraphyThis is a very cool photo project. PhD hopeful Tarja Trygg of Helsinki has been taking multi month long exposure pinhole photos of the sun .
"I began my experiments in May, 2002 with short exposure times and as I continued to research this method my interest has grown bigger and bigger like a snow ball rolling forward. I wanted to have solargraphs even to a half year exposure time."
Tarja relies on ‘can assistants’ around the world to place cameras at various latitudes. "I tried to make a global map of solargraphs. But it is not possible to do this alone. Of course I liked the idea to get a sponsor who would finance me traveling all around the world for installing my pinhole cameras all over the world. After that I would travel again to pick them up. But, because I have no sponsors and no money I thought it would be better to ask volunteers ‘can assistants’ to help me.’

This could be a great summer project for kids. Start the exposure now and when the winter break hits develope the image.  

[via Pinhole Visions] 

Solargraphy

Apple Macbooks Shutting Down?

Macbook by Gridman 

Could Apple’s Macbooks have a serious problem? I don’t mean the one where the plugs fall out or the cases turn colors when you use them, I mean that the notebooks will just up and quit on you. As documented here and here, at least one user is having just this problem. have any other of the shiny Apple users reported this problem yet, or is this smoothing that is yet to hit the blogosphere. I hope that this is an isolated event, I want to buy one of these puppies and would hate to discover that they hold some deep dark secret in the form of random power offs. That would suck, and not in a good way either.

 

MacBook Weirdness

I’ve Got Stents On (In) the Brain

Brain stint 

 

Medical science never fails to amaze me. This is a good example of just that.

University of Buffalo doctor L.N. "Nick Hopkins" wants to snake a NiTi tipped catheter into your brain. That is, if you happen to have a non-drug responsive, high risk aneurysm. Applying technology that’s been in use all over the rest of the vasculature, cerebral stenting offers a "lets open up that skull of yours"-free option, but still needs some development work…

Going Where No Stents Have Gone Before: The Brain

Pinhole Photos of Lightning

Lightning storm via pinholeA few nights ago a large thunderstorm rolled across the Phoenix area. my immediate thought was to grab my camera and take some pictures. Now I’ve done this before and I have never been all that lucky in getting a fantastic image in the 30 seconds I keep the shutter open. How the heck could I take a picture that had an exposure of minutes and not totally nuke the film? Humm… Well my pinhole cameras are pretty slow and the pinoramic is nice and wide. I decided to give it a try and this is what do you know, the strikes were bright enough to record on the film. Quite nicely I might add. The negs were pretty thin so this is the best I could do. I would have liked the background to be better exposed, or exposed at all for that matter. All in all its good for an exposure that was done without a lens. Its all cloudy right now so I’m going to prep the camera for another run tonight. I’m aiming for an hour exposure, that should cook the film quite nicely.

Lightning storm via pinhole on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

A Study in Expired Film

Expired film 

 

Ever see a roll of real old film in an antique store and wonder what would happen if you actually ran it through a camera and developed it? Well wonder no more. This is an example of some Ilford film that expired in 1957. I dare anyone to reproduce this in Photoshop! He’s shot quite a few rolls of the old stuff, go have a look, it’s great stuff. This looks like a pretty good photo blog, I’m going to have to keep an eye on it.

moominstuff: Expired Film