Alternative Methods

[Dzerzhinski46]

Dear All,

I was curious, how many of you have dabbled, or have seriously undertaken alternative photographic methods? I mean pinhole, cyanotype, alternative printing processes, etc. How successful, and (more importantly) how much did you enjoy it?

Dzerzhinski

[lidarman]

Interesting that you posted this only a few minutes before I posted this:

Groundbreaking Technology

Which I had posted earlier on mtbr.com. And I posted earlier today another pic in the gallery from my little digital pinhole project.

The fun in this stuff is experimenting with the fundamental concepts of photography.

I like messing with the equipment and light sources and stuff. One year, I messed with a flash and did some Edgerton-type high speed photography, which is still on of my favorite styles of photography.

Other stuff I have dabbled with is stop motion movie using a digital camera. I still want to make a several minute movie with the works but it's really time consuming.

[CaSousa]

Back when I was into astronomy, I didn't have an eyepiece to SLR adaptor, so I made a cardboard cone to put over the eyepiece, and simply held the camera in place. Made some pretty crude pictures of some lunar craters, but other than that, didn't work too well.
But hey, that's what experimentation is for, right?

-chris

[walterick]

I bought a $20 pinhole body cap for my Nikon a few years back, ran a roll through it and hated it. It's been sitting in my bag ever since.

Other than that, I fool around with reversing lenses, mixing Pentax bellows with Nikon cameras, etc. The mechanics of it all enthral me much more than the chemical/darkroom aspect of photogtraphy

Rick

[Lionheart]

Dear All,

I was curious, how many of you have dabbled, or have seriously undertaken alternative photographic methods? I mean pinhole, cyanotype, alternative printing processes, etc. How successful, and (more importantly) how much did you enjoy it?

Dzerzhinski

Drilled a hole in one of my spare body caps for my EOS-1d. It worked,but I really didn't want to do much photography on my digital camera with a pinhole cap - too much chance of dust getting in to the sensors, and I try to keep cleaning the sensor to a minimum to lessen risk of damage to the sensor.

[petemac]

I have done a fair amount of work with my digital pinhole (maybe 200 shots?) in the past few months. That is fun. If you consider light painting an alternative method, cound me in on that as well. Light painting is easily the most fun i have ever had with a camera. When i used to have access to a darkroom i used to play with a quaker oats pinhole and a lot of direct paper exposures done in the dark. I think that the experiments keep me going and i enjoy them a lot. -pete

[megan]

I was old school, hardcore 35mm Tri-X shooter until I discovered the Holga in '98. Since then, I rarely use my expensive name-brand equipent, and experimentation has given way to an active shooting life with the Holga, Diana, pinholes, and whatever other odd mechanical camera I can gets my hands on. I was in ICP yesterday and saw a kit for a cardboard pinhole shaped like an instamatic camera. It's on my Christmas list!

Megan

[Dzerzhinski46]

Dear All,

Thanks for the replys. Fun to know that I am not the only weird one . Here is a cyanotype I made from commercial paper and some negatives I had. Enjoy!

Dzerzhinski