Pinholaroid + Polaroid 669 film

I’d spent late Saturday night making a pinhole camera from an old Polaroid Colorpack II I’d won in auction. I wanted to participate in this year’s Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day – and I stayed up past midnight futzin’ around in the garage to make sure I could.

Sunday morning came and I was ready – I had a pack of 669 to use for the whole day and I had some places I wanted to shoot. After the Sunday morning ritual, I loaded up the Pinholaroid and took a practice shot of a rose bush in the backyard – it turned out excellent. All systems go! I loaded up the truck and headed for Alviso, a great place to shoot with any kind of camera. On my way there, I decided to pull into the church parking lot next to Mission College – there’s a fantastically huge statue of Our Lady of Peace that seemed a perfect subject for the pinhole.

I couldn’t find a place to park the truck. Mass was just about to let out and the church parking lot was full, so I had to park across the street in the old Yahoo! parking lot. I walked up the hill and set up my tripod – took the shot and headed for the truck to continue with the process. Once in the truck, I removed the camera from the tripod and yanked out the white paper tab. My heart sunk. The picture tab didn’t pop out. Damn! I didn’t bring my dark bag with me, so I just opened the back of the Colorpack II and fiddled with the film until I got the next good white tab to show, then I closed it up. Sadly, I lost two shots.

I walked back up the hill and took another shot, the one you see above. It turned out a little funky, as did every shot after opening the camera back.

I had a good time, regardless. At Alviso Marina I ran into former San Jose Mayor Susan Hammer and introduced myself. I met a security guard at Santana Row who was actually cool about me taking pictures of “the wall” and left me to continue with my pinhole fun. A couple of hours and a handful of decent shots later, I did it. I took part in my first Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. Next year I’d like to do it with a group of people and a couple of different cameras. That, I think, would be fun.

I uploaded this shot last night to the WPPD site using their online form. I can’t wait to see all the work uploaded this year.

I couldn’t have done this without the video tutorials produced by Michael Pastur and Cameron Stephen. I’m going to keep experimenting with lensless photography. I’ve got three more Colorpack II cameras to convert to pinholaroids, so the fun is just beginning!


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