Sean Duggan Blog: Pinhole Travel Journal: Streetcars and Near-Disasters

Streetcar, Halle, No.1 [ZeroImage 6x9 Pinhole Camera]
July 25, 2009 - Halle, Germany
(click in the image for a larger version)

19 Rolls

In addition to all of the pixel-based images I made during my recent travels in Germany, I also exposed 19 rolls of black & white medium format film. This was mostly in my ZeroImage 6x9 wooden pinhole camera but there were also a few rolls that were used in my plastic Diana camera. The film came back from the lab a few days ago and the scene above is the first image I worked on (the negatives are developed and all further work on the image takes place in the digital darkroom using high resolution scans made from the negs).

The Flight of the Zero

My ZeroImage pinhole camera had a rough trip and suffered two bad falls that would have put most other cameras out of action. The first incident happened on the very first day. While carrying the camera and a few other items down the hotel stairs, I bumped my arm against the railing and the camera flew out of my grasp. I watched in dismay as it flew through the air and smashed hard against the metal stair railing, bounced off that and then hurtled even farther down the stairs.

It crashed loudly against the stone landing and clattered across the floor before it finally came to a stop. The force of the impact was very strong and as I rushed down the steps I was expecting to see it cracked and broken apart in several pieces, ending my hopes of making pinhole images on this trip. To my surprise, however, it remained intact and seemed OK except for a few dents and a gouge in the lacquer on the bottom front edge. Upon closer inspection I saw that one of the seams appeared a bit loose in the corner so I taped this together with black electrician's tape to ensure that it held together and to ward off potential light leaks.

A week later while exploring Halle (where the image above was taken) the camera fell out of my open camera bag and hit the cobblestones quite hard. But again, it appeared to have survived this fall with only a few additional scratches. Later in the trip, the metal tripod mount on the bottom began to come loose and after this the camera could never be firmly attached to a tripod (it could still be used with the tripod, but it was always a bit wobbly and opening the shutter had to be done with great care to avoid moving it during the exposure). This had happened once before in the Nevada desert back in March and after that trip I had re-glued it and secured it with new screws. My guess is that the two hard impacts had caused this vital piece of hardware to become loose again.

Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking

In spite of all of these accidents and punishment endured by the camera I was still able to use it for the entire trip and, apart from the few frames mentioned above, none of the damage it suffered showed up in the images, which is a testament to the strength and durability of its construction. Now that we've been back for about a week and I've dealt with the deadlines that were demanding my attention, it's time to take it to the workbench for some much needed repairs and a general tune-up.