Day 6: January 6th

My fascination with "alternative" photography started about ten years ago.  There is this guy who was like the best artistic photographer of his day.  Of course he was overshadowed by the exploits of another photographer who was less talented.  That's just my opinion, but it is mine and I'm sticking with it - Joseph Steichen was more talented than Alfred Steiglitz ANY FRIGGIN DAY.  There.  I said it.

Anyway, Steichen in his day would do things like ping his camera legs (they had legs back then) to intentionally create camera shake.  This softened the image and created a painterly look.  He would drop water on the lens to see what that would do.  He tried all kinds of things that might have seemed nutty.  The results were stunning and I LOVE HIM.

What does this have to do with day 6?  This picture was taken with a pinhole lens, which cost me $50 U.S. bucks.  Pinhole cameras have a long history and are often created as craft projects for sixth graders.  Many an oatmeal box has met its fate as a pinhole camera.  You can make them any time any where.  Images from these cameras are often soft-focused and have what some may describe as an "artistic" look.  So my little $50 pinhole lens is just a lens cap with a hole in the middle.  The hole is covered with  thin plastic sheet.  There is no high-tech aspect to it.  You put the camera on the tripod, open the shutter for however long (5 minutes in this case) and voila!  You get a picture.  There is no focusing, there is no worrying about f-stops or anything like that.  I like it very much.