2023 Winter Solstice Pinhole Camera Pics

Happy Solstice! From here on in it gets better, with a few minutes more light each day.

Here's the best of this season's winter solstice pinhole camera pictures. The tech behind these could not be any simpler. A piece of Foma black and white photographic paper is rolled up, inserted, and sealed inside a clean beer can. A single pinhole is poked in the can to admit light, the whole works is attached to a hopeful vantage point, and then I wait. These cans were put out on the summer solstice, so each swooping line on the horizon represents a single day's journey of the sun across the horizon.

It's best to aim it towards the south, but it's also fun to experiment. This one above was off the the side, on top of a garden trellis, so you can see some of the sun paths but also a nice assortment of trees.

I do the above view every year, it's looking out from the front of my suburban home near Pittsburgh, PA, USA. This year a shrub grew up and partially obscured the view for a while in the summer; you can see a few branches and a leaf. 

I do these because they are fun, and because when everything is instant it's nice to have something to wait for. I hope you enjoy them!
 

Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 88

I did one last round of wet cyan prints, using fresh leaves before the first frost hit. Up first is a print on cotton fabric using sensitive fern, Onoclea sensibilis, and eastern redbud leaves, Cercis canadensis. The redbud is a sport variety, Rising Sun, I had my eye on all summer at my favorite nursery, and when it went on sale in the fall I brought it home. The leaves emerge orangey-red, then turn chartreuse, which sounds sort of gimmicky but looks really lovely. 

The sensitive fern was the focus of a large quilt I did back in 2007, which I titled Mystery Fern. This was pre-google image search, when I had to rely on what was in my head or in my field guides, and at first I couldn't do a positive ID, hence the "mystery". It remains one of my all-time favorites, for its imagery and it's cool, woodsy vibe.

Mystery Fern

Along with the big fabric print, I did four variations of redbud leaves on mineral paper.

All of these prints are primarily cyanotype chemicals, with just a smidge of Solarfast solar dye in yellow.

Here they all are after exposure, but before rinsing.

There's lots of good swirly stuff happening on the mineral paper.

And here are the rinsed and finished prints.

That's probably the last printmaking session for the year, although I do have bunch of pressed leaves, so I might get inspired on a cold and snowy day. 

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