The Plastic Lens ~ Words » Melbourne

The Kitchen Darkroom

Cameron — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 23:20:55 +0000

One Saturday a group of friends with a common passion for analogue photography got together to convert Paul’s kitchen into a darkroom for the afternoon for the purposes of making some traditional photographic ‘wet’ prints. Those of us not experienced in this art (Lea, Sophie & I) watched & learnt from our friends Paul & Jock. I captured this time-lapse of some of the process, not really expecting it to come out as well as it did.
I hope this can inspire others to delve more into the fantastic world of traditional photographic techniques.

Unsensored [Coda] & Upcoming Events

Cameron — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:23:40 +0000

It’s been a busy year and it’s not over yet. Coming up in September is something I’ve been looking forward to for oh, 2 years now, since the last one! The Ballarat International Foto Biennale is about to kick off and anyone who is even vaguely interested in Photography would find more than enough to entertain and enlighten them in the month of September in the beautiful country Victorian town of Ballarat and it’s surroundings. Comprising 20 Core exhibitions, 60 Fringe shows, workshops, seminars, portfolio reviews, affiliate events, artist floor talks, camera market, special events…and much more it should be a fantastic start to Spring!
Then if that wasn’t enough, before we know it the next World Toy Camera Day will be upon us! That’s right, not long now, October 17, 2009 to be precise. There are other very funky thangs like HolgaPalooza happening at the moment, but perhaps I’ll get a chance to talk about that in my next post.

Finally I’ll leave you with a short movie filmed on the digital harinezumi. Wrapping up the last day of the Unsensored 09 exhibition at the Collingwood Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria on 19th August 2009. Covering the work of 43 artists using film in their photographic expression. Thanks to the committee and all who participated, exhibited, helped and attended. It was great!
Music: tiny beats by twoth – Lost films vol. 1 Powershovel Audio Allstars – www.powershovelaudio.com

Unsensored 09

Cameron — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:12:30 +0000

Unsensored 09

Unsensored 09 – The Melbourne Silver Mine presents Unsensored 09 an exhibition of analogue photography. Now in it 3rd year, The Melbourne Silver Mine’s UNSENSORED09 is the work of 43 artists using film in their photographic expression. Opening night Friday 7th August 2009 6pm at The Collinwood Gallery 292 Smith St Collingwood, Melbourne. The exhibition runs from the 7th – 19th of August. Mon-Fri 12pm -8pm | Sat & Sun 10am – 6pm.
The exhibitions official website is here.

Melbourne in Winter

Cameron — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:25:41 +0000

This post is not about photography or toy cameras per se, but about Melbourne at night this Winter. I went to the excellent Dali – Liquid Desires exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria late night and afterwards wandered around with my BBF attached to a tripod, shutter set on “B” for some night exposures. In Federation Square they had this great installation set up called VOLUME. It’s an audio visual installation made up of LED embedded pillars which respond with light and audio to people walking around them. It’s absolutely facinating and has to be experienced to truly appreciate it. This short video captures some of the ambience of thi audio-visual installation, which currently at Federation Square in Melbourne as part of The Light in Winter 2009 events. Some of the video is captured with the Digital Harinezumi by Superheadz and some on a more conventional Kodak M1093S camera. All audio is actual sound from the installation (and ambient surrounding noise)

VOLUME from artpunk on Vimeo.

Pinhole Rose in the Paper

Cameron — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:16:06 +0000

esterday (November 12th) my pinhole rose photo was published in the extratech section of the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne. It’s good to see that in these days of megapixel digital photography the origins of photography and image making (the Camera Obscura) still get some mention (even if it is under the title ‘strange but true‘ *lol*) The article was printed in B & W unfortunately, as the whole layout and accompanying images looked great in colour, hats of to the editor Richard and graphic artist involved – My thanks to Richard Conrad (the technical editor of the paper) for providing the colour pdf of the article for my reference – note that my image and accompanying review of World Pinhole Photography Day is just a small section of the whole article which encompassed a broad spectrum of photography related subjects.

Developing In The Park

Cameron — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:51:47 +0000

Last Sunday the Melbourne Silver Mine Inc and Melbourne Flickr group held a meet at Albert Park Lake where some of the more experienced members demonstrated how easy it was to develop your own B & W film with a few chemicals and fairly simple equipment. They started by loading exposed B & W film onto a reel to be placed in a developing tank. This was done in a light-proof bag. Then the developing solution was added to the tank and the tank was gently agitated at regular intervals to get proper coverage of solution over the film. Once the prescribed time for development was up (in this case 13min with Rodinal, but this varies with different developers and dilution etc.) the developer was poured out and the film rinsed, still in the tank with tap water a few times to remove any residual developer. Then fixer was added and the gentle, regular agitation process was repeated, this time for a shorter time. After that, the fixer was poured out, the top of the tank was removed and the film was rinsed in water a few times again. What we had then was a fully developed & fixed negative, just like one you would get from a lab. (note that I thought I had some images of the chemical jiggery in the development tank, but I didn’t. I shouldn’t have drunk that wine Ziz kindly offered me) The guys even went further to make a viable contact print cleverly using a light box and photographic paper. It was so easy even I managed to do it! I exposed a roll of Kodak Tri X 400 that afternoon and even managed to produce recognisable images after developing the film myself (with help and guidance from Rhys, Rob and Zaeem from the Silvermine). Thanks Guys!

Rob loading film in the Dark Bag

Rhys looking at the developed negative

[caption id="attachment_199" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Developing a Contact Print"]
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The Final Contact Print

UNSENSORED08

Cameron — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 05:57:27 +0000

If anyone is bopping around in Melbourne this evening, there is a joint photographic exhibition of analog photography opening tonight @ 6pm, all welcome! I have one photo hanging, but there are many wonderful examples of film photography showing.

The exhibition details are below:

UNSENSORED08
Collingwood Gallery
292 Smith Street Collingwood
Opening Tonight (08 08 ’08!) at 6pm
Exhibition showing from the 8th – 20th August 2008
Mon-Fri 11am – 9pm | Sat & Sun 10am – 5pm