Re: successful workshop

Gord -

Sounds like it was a lot of fun. The simplicity and lack of expense of
materials make this fun for everyone.

Cheers -

george

--- "Gordon J. Holtslander" <holtsg@duke.usask.ca> wrote:

> Hi:
>
> Rick and I did our pinhole alternative process workshop this past weekend.
> It was very successful. We had 11 participants, all left happy with some
> new techniques and a pile of pinhole work.
>
> We were able to offer this as part of the UofS extension divisions
> certificate of art program. We were able to use their facilities which
> made it very easy to do this workshop.
>
> We introduced pinhole cameras - talked briefly about essentials - spent
> most of our time explaining how to make a good pinhole and F stop and F
> number calculations, so that participants could properly expose. Talked
> about the film we use, large format Kodak CGP. We were providing lots of
> film 8x10 up to 16x20.
>
> They then went and spent about an hour building cameras. We had brought
> in a bunch of tins tape cardboard aluminum flashing (for pinholes)
>
> We had also brought in all of our cameras. lots of 8x10's a 8x10 zone
> plate, a 6 hole 360 degree camera, a 12x18 inch camera. Rick made a 16x20
> inch camera for the occasion.
>
> We explained how to process the film - We were using our favorite CGP
> film. Development was done in trays under safelight.
>
> A few people went home over our lunch break and brought pinhole camera
> building materials from home.
>
> The participants then spent the afternoon shooting film and processing.
> We made sure each person made a good negative with one of the really large
> cameras. People "got-it" right away and were working pretty independently
> by the afternoon. People used their own cameras and the ready made
> cameras we had provided.
>
> We had trouble dealing with the volume of film people were producing :)
>
> At the end of Saturday's sesssion we asked if anyone was interested in
> taking a camera home with them, in order to take pictures in a different
> location. EVERYONE wanted to take one home !
>
> Sunday morning we set up the darkroom to process the film everyone had
> shot the evening before.
>
> We then introduced cyanotype and VanDyke Brown. We had made a simple
> printing frame for each person, a 12 x 18 piece of glass two pieces of
> hardboard - hinged together with duct tape and six spring clips to hold it
> together. A very simple split back printing frame.
>
>
> People started coating paper and printing the negatives they had. We just
> used the sun outside as a UV source - it was a bright sunny day luckily.
> People just stepped out of the building with their negative and paper in a
> printing frame, and held it in the sun for a few minutes. They stepped
> inside to open one half of the frame in order to judge the exposure.
>
> Told and showed them how to judge when a cyanotype and vandyke was
> properly exposed.
>
> We had the darkroom set up with chemistry for VanDyke and Cyanotype. When
> they exposure looked OK - they would process the print.
>
> We had a big printing frame for the 12x18 and 16x20 negatives.
>
> By the afternoon everyone was working independently. Just asking us
> questions to confirm things they had thought through.
>
> Also showed people how to coat fabric and print negatives or photograms on
> T-shirts and fabric. We had many fabulous fabric photograms created, many
> combinations of photograms and pinhole negatives.
>
> Again I had trouble finding places to dry all the prints and fabric :)
>
> People left the workshop with a good understanding of pinhole cameras, and
> working knowledge of cyanotype and vandyke, a pile of negatives, prints,
> at least one good large format print, a T shirt and a fabric print of some
> kind.
>
> Everyone produced at least one piece that all of the other participants
> "ewed and awed" over :)
>
> Our goal in the workshop was to show people how simple and accessable
> pinhole/alt-process photograhy can be. I think is was successful - all
> the participants were working independently very quickly, and produced
> really good results.
>
> At the end of the workshop we had to insist that people stop, lots of
> people were saying I just have to do one more :)
>
> Four of the participants were High-School Art teachers. They said they
> would add this to their classes. Many of them said this will work very
> well with their programs. Hopefully there will be a steady crop of
> pinholers here in the near future:)
>
> It was the most fun I have had in a long time.
>
> Gord
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Gordon J. Holtslander Dept. of Biology
> holtsg@duke.usask.ca 112 Science Place
> http://duke.usask.ca/~holtsg University of Saskatchewan
> Tel (306) 966-4433 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
> Fax (306) 966-4461 Canada S7N 5E2
> ---------------------------------------------------------
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Received on Tue Jul 25 09:58:38 2006