Exposed: the longest exposure found
December 14, 2020 1:08 PM Subscribe
our observations of the passage of time are so subjective, this beautiful condensation of time into a single image is haunting, it makes me wonder what it would be like to see everything like a hazy infinite stop motion animation.
posted by th3ph17 at 1:33 PM on December 14, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by th3ph17 at 1:33 PM on December 14, 2020 [7 favorites]
This brings me an indescribable amount of delight and awe, for reasons I can't really... (oh well)...
posted by rubatan at 1:35 PM on December 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by rubatan at 1:35 PM on December 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
I had a feeling of deja vu on seeing this. Maybe something I came across years ago? It was a similar pinhole camera too I think.
posted by bxvr at 2:11 PM on December 14, 2020
posted by bxvr at 2:11 PM on December 14, 2020
Must have been a very quiet spot to put this camera, out of the elements but still able to record the sky. Any movement of that can, and the exposure would be done for.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:17 PM on December 14, 2020
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:17 PM on December 14, 2020
ps I've long said my spirit animal is a rock
Using spirit animal in this manner is considered cultural appropriation of indigenous religious traditions. I switched to using "mascot" instead.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:45 PM on December 14, 2020 [7 favorites]
Using spirit animal in this manner is considered cultural appropriation of indigenous religious traditions. I switched to using "mascot" instead.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:45 PM on December 14, 2020 [7 favorites]
I wonder why some sun traces are broader than others. I could understand it if the traces were overlapping, or if there was a constant progression of thickness, but there seems to be something complicated going on.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:45 PM on December 14, 2020
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:45 PM on December 14, 2020
You can do this yourself for about $20. Solarcan sells preloaded kits with instructions.
posted by octothorpe at 4:58 PM on December 14, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 4:58 PM on December 14, 2020 [3 favorites]
All of the traces are made up of multiple actual transits of the sun. Width will be determined by how many are in nearly the same spot.
Which just kicks it down the road: why isn't it a continuous brightening top to bottom (which was what I was expecting to see). APOD discussing a different image says: Dark gaps in the daily arcs are caused by cloud cover.
Must have been a very quiet spot to put this camera, out of the elements but still able to record the sky. Any movement of that can, and the exposure would be done for.
Observatories are generally mounted on concrete poured on bedrock. Glue or bolt the can to that concrete and it isn't going anywhere.
I'm amazed that a piece of film exposed to the temperatures that must exist in a can exposed to direct sunlight wasn't completely destroyed. Considering all the other, unnoted number of, cameras didn't yield an image, that we have this image is fluke of chemistry.
posted by Mitheral at 6:57 PM on December 14, 2020 [3 favorites]
Which just kicks it down the road: why isn't it a continuous brightening top to bottom (which was what I was expecting to see). APOD discussing a different image says: Dark gaps in the daily arcs are caused by cloud cover.
Must have been a very quiet spot to put this camera, out of the elements but still able to record the sky. Any movement of that can, and the exposure would be done for.
Observatories are generally mounted on concrete poured on bedrock. Glue or bolt the can to that concrete and it isn't going anywhere.
I'm amazed that a piece of film exposed to the temperatures that must exist in a can exposed to direct sunlight wasn't completely destroyed. Considering all the other, unnoted number of, cameras didn't yield an image, that we have this image is fluke of chemistry.
posted by Mitheral at 6:57 PM on December 14, 2020 [3 favorites]
This is fascinating. I went to art school and made pinhole cameras myself, but can anyone answer a question for me? Would the emulsion have remained light sensitive for the full 8 years, or is it more like, it captured images for four years until the chemistry stopped being photosensitive, and then just sat in the can for another four years? How long does photo paper stay viable when exposed to (minimal) light and the elements?
posted by ejs at 11:21 PM on December 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by ejs at 11:21 PM on December 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
Charles Sowers has an incredible piece of solar sculpture in San Francisco. For three years, a glass globe has moved a little bit every day inside three scooped-out redwood tree trunks. The globe focuses the sun's light onto the wood surface, scorching the same kind of solar track captured by this pinhole camera. The project is drawing to a close this month, which is a good reminder to go peek at it in Glen Park Canyon, right outside the rec center. Some sunny days when I'd be walking or biking by, I'd smell the sweet smoky smell and be reminded to take another look.
If you go visit, make sure to stop by Pinhole Coffee next door in Bernal Heights.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 8:32 AM on December 15, 2020 [6 favorites]
If you go visit, make sure to stop by Pinhole Coffee next door in Bernal Heights.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 8:32 AM on December 15, 2020 [6 favorites]
This is probably the result of a workshop by Justin Quinnell , the king of pinhole photography in the UK. His Solargraphy Images usually have six months or so exposure.
I’ve happily stole his beer can pinhole camera method which is an awesome way of teaching darkroom contact printing if you use photographic paper as the film. Best results we ever got was the weird Möbius strip images you can get using a Pringles tube and a couple of pinholes.
posted by brilliantmistake at 10:50 AM on December 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
I’ve happily stole his beer can pinhole camera method which is an awesome way of teaching darkroom contact printing if you use photographic paper as the film. Best results we ever got was the weird Möbius strip images you can get using a Pringles tube and a couple of pinholes.
posted by brilliantmistake at 10:50 AM on December 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
A classmate in college got a hold of several liters of photosensitive emulsion just past expiration.
They covered their bedroom windows with cardboard and made the whole room a pinhole camera.
The only substrate they had at hand were several commercial size rolls of toilet paper stolen from the library bathrooms, so they soaked them in emulsion and hung them just in front of the wall.
Then they installed a few photo-red lights in the room and invited people over to develop the toilet paper. The act of developing dissolved the toilet paper, so one could see a part of the wall size picture develop at the same time as it started disintegrating.
People with steady hands managed to keep a few squares intact.
The fun part is that this was not supposed to be a high-art symbolic project or anything, just some stoner engineering. But my classmate wrote a post-facto manifesto and rose it into a couple of grants and a exchange student scholarship.
posted by Dr. Curare at 1:31 PM on December 16, 2020 [7 favorites]
They covered their bedroom windows with cardboard and made the whole room a pinhole camera.
The only substrate they had at hand were several commercial size rolls of toilet paper stolen from the library bathrooms, so they soaked them in emulsion and hung them just in front of the wall.
Then they installed a few photo-red lights in the room and invited people over to develop the toilet paper. The act of developing dissolved the toilet paper, so one could see a part of the wall size picture develop at the same time as it started disintegrating.
People with steady hands managed to keep a few squares intact.
The fun part is that this was not supposed to be a high-art symbolic project or anything, just some stoner engineering. But my classmate wrote a post-facto manifesto and rose it into a couple of grants and a exchange student scholarship.
posted by Dr. Curare at 1:31 PM on December 16, 2020 [7 favorites]
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[Just kidding, this is really cool.]
posted by chavenet at 1:28 PM on December 14, 2020 [1 favorite]