Strange Pulse

1. Remember to remember whether or not you wound the film after each shot.
2. Ducks are mean.
3. Noonday sunlight might not be the best conditions to take pictures, especially when your pinhole is more like a pencilhole.
4. Keep the camera STILL.
5. Electrical tape doesn’t make a good shutter.
6. Geese are meaner than ducks.
7. Pinholes don’t come with a focus option.

I got my first pinhole roll of film back. I was basically expecting none of the film to come out, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that some of the exposure times I guessed at were actually ok. However the focus on any of the shots is non-existent. I don’t know if I should try making a smaller pinhole or keep experimenting with this one.

Here’s a picture of the camera, after I modified it to make the “shutter” easier to use:

The pictures I took indoors came out better…sort of. I took pictures of everything twice—well actually about four times. I took a quick snapshot with my digital camera, so I could compare what the pinhole did to what it actually looked like in real life. Then I did three exposures with the pinhole camera—one really fast, one about 2-3 seconds, and then one about 5 seconds. I had no idea if any of them would come out. I had surprisingly few light leaks.

This is one of the first pictures I took, before redoing the shutter:

This is what that shot looked like with my digital:

As you can see, my digital was zoomed in quite a bit more. If you’re wondering, those are the electricity meters on the side of one of the buildings in our apartment complex.

I had no idea how many turns to wind the film, so I just guessed at about 3/4 of a turn. What you’re seeing here is two exposures, one is vertical and one is horizontal:

The yellow flowers were a vertical shot, the red flowers horizontal.

The shutter was originally a piece of electrical tape, and it was hard to remove it and replace it quickly—it also made the whole area where the pinhole was move whenever I took it off. Before changing the shutter aperatus, I took this picture of myself in our dining room. I basically just wanted to get a good look at the pinhole again.

Those red marks are light leaks? I guess. Not sure. I left the shutter open for a couple of seconds on that shot.

After changing the shutter, I took the camera to a local park with a duck pond during lunch. None of the pictures I took there came out very well at all. Here’s an example:

And here’s what that looked like with my digital camera:

Back home again, I tried some more flower shots, but this one I forgot to duplicate with my digital—it’s probably my favorite shot of the whole roll:

Then I took a shot of Elijah outside, in the shade:

And Nathaniel, in the house (he was working on one of the Guitar Hero guitars, taking it apart and messing with it):

I took this at the pool:

This is what it is:

And one of the last photos to turn out was an accidental double exposure:

So, while not a complete failure (the film wasn’t completely over or under exposed!), the lack of focus on all the shots is kind of bothersome. I know pinholes are supposed to be funky and out of focus, but I think if I try a much smaller hole I’ll get better results.

Also, that black bar you see along the side of every shot is a piece of cardboard I ran the film behind to try to create a frame for each shot. The frame of it must be off center from the pinhole. I wasn’t exactly extremely careful with making sure it lined up. I might try another roll without it at all.

Everyone knew us for our yard. That’s right. Our yard. Was it a wondrous garden people drove for miles to see? No. Were we one of those families that spends hundreds of dollars on crazy Christmas light displays? Hardly. What, then?

Did it have carnival rides?

It might as well have.

Years ago we lived in a small town in the Olympic Peninsula in Washington called Sequim. (Rhymes with “swim.”) It’s my favorite place on earth. We owned a house there, with a big backyard that sloped downward.

Daniel transformed it into a BMX track. He dug it all by himself, by hand, with a shovel. (It was a great stress outlet for him.)

This is what it looked like before he started:

This is what it looked like after:

That’s Nathaniel riding a 75. He looks so small on it. He’d dwarf it now.

I’m sure you can imagine how popular our yard was with all the neighborhood kids:

Our kids sure loved it.

I’m not sure the neighbors did, however. You can kind of see in this picture how all of our back yards met up in this small valley:

I’m sure they loved looking out their kitchen windows and seeing our mounds of dirt.

But maybe we weren’t as bad as the neighbors next door:

All that junk in the background is theirs.

But let’s take a minute to examine this last picture. Isn’t Catherine adorable? But my awful hair; that awful skirt. (Thrift store find.) I still have a thing for clunky shoes. I swear Catherine could never wear clothes that match. She still has that problem today. I don’t know why the one chair is roped off, but the bigger mystery is why there are two high chairs in the yard. I think we had family over that day, and the kids must’ve put those chairs all out there so the visitors could sit and watch them play in the dirt.

Here’s one of the first web pages I ever made, with some more photos of our backyard:

Malmroses Get Dirty

Sequim has a BMX park now. If you go there, you can probably still find people who remember us for our backyard.

My side? No way.

Daniel’s sister teaches autistic kids. Her classroom is featured in a two-part local news piece, along with interviews with her and her autistic son, Isaak. You can watch them here:

http://www.katu.com/news/7374746.html?video=pop&t=a

http://www.katu.com/news/local/7385496.html?video=YHI&t=a

Pretty interesting stuff, although Audra was disappointed they didn’t include much of what she said about intervention and how much can be done for kids with high-functioning autism. Isaak also comes across as much more autistic than he is. Maybe it’s the pressure of the camera. But he’s right—his brain does excel over average.

Nathaniel caught the last little bit with me about how kids interact in social settings, and when it was done I said, “Well, there you have it—you guys all have autism.” He laughed a sarcastic “Ha. Ha. Ha.” Very funny, Mom.

But our kids do have weird social issues. I was thinking about it for awhile. Then I remembered my own behavior the other night at a church function and had to laugh.

My brother is really into film photography, and all I’ve been doing for years now is digital. It’s so nice to be able to see instantly how your shots came out. Delete them if they’re not what you wanted. Who has time (or money) to buy film and get it developed?

Well I do now that I’m home fulltime.

So I decided to try making a pinhole camera. My brother has made some and his pictures are always interesting. (He also is into toy cameras.) I have an antique box camera I really need to try out, but you have to special order the film so I haven’t yet.

I made my pinhole out of a staple box, like my brother’s, except my box is much longer and wider. I got a little creative with it, but you can’t tell that from looking at it. I should’ve taken pictures as I was building it, but I was hoping to get it done in time to take some pictures before the sun set. I didn’t make it though. So I still haven’t taken pictures with it.

In case you don’t know, a pinhole camera is just one you make out of something like a box or a can, something that can be made light-tight (with the aid of black paint/markers and electrical tape). You create a hole for the aperature out of tin foil or something similar—it needs to be thin and the hole needs to be small. The picture above is the front. You can’t see it, but there’s a strip of black electrical tape that is acting as the shutter. I’ll just peel it back to expose the film and stick it closed again to conceal it.

I’m worried I made my hole too small. I don’t know really know how long to expose the film or even how far to wind it for each picture. So it’s all guesswork at this point. I’ll need to write down what I do for each exposure so when I get the film back I can figure out what worked and what didn’t.

I also went a little overboard with the electrical tape, since I was worried about light leaks. I’m not sure how easily I’ll be able to get the roll of film back off of the box. I tried to tape it in a way so it wouldn’t destroy the whole thing when I took it off. I guess we’ll see.

Here’s the back:

Gotta love the family portrait in front of the family portrait! Also, this is one of the few pictures I have of my Dorothy Hamill haircut…wait a minute. My brothers have the same haircut.

I wish I could remember what was on that shirt I’m wearing. I loved it because it was all sparkly.

Got the link to this from my brother’s blog. How cool is this?

Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)

We do sorta walk on water…if kite surfing counts.

OK, not really. We only kept score for one course, I’m sure he beat me on the one we didn’t. And he was ahead of me the entire time on the course we did keep score until just before the end, when he kept screwing up and I sailed on through.

The course is right next to the freeway:

We had an Andy Goldsworthy moment:

There were some pretty flowers:

It was fun. Never knew I was so good at golf. I think my secret is being really tired. I didn’t over think things or try very hard, just played, and did well.