This is one of the Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (WPPD) images
that I didn’t submit to the WPPD Gallery this year but in many ways I actually
like this one better than the one I did submit. I was shooting a long (16 second)
exposure on Kodak Portra 400 with my new Ondu 35mm Pocket Pinhole camera but I
couldn’t get the red birdhouse in the foreground to stay still. The birdhouse
hangs on a stainless steel cable from a tree limb and was facing away. When I
turned it so that it was facing the way I wanted it to face it would slowly
turn back around.
I decided the next best thing to actually having the
birdhouse facing the way I wanted was to have it turn and thereby “blur out”
during the exposure so I rotated it around so that it made a complete 360
degree turn during the 16 second exposure and the image above is what was captured
in my little wooden box.
In spite of my misgivings about the shutter the Ondu really
is a beautifully crafted camera. The wood it is made out of was clearly
carefully selected and finished to produce a work of art. I love wood and love
working with wood and I appreciate that the fit and finish on the Ondu is some
of the finest work I have seen on something made of wood.
I will probably continue to use it just because of the
pleasure derived from handling such a beautiful well made camera.
