Today was Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, a day when — as indicated by the name — people all over the world go out with a pinhole camera and shoot photos.

The original plan was to go to Six Flags (it’s opening weekend) to shoot since the subject matter is a lot more interesting than stuff around the house or the scummy retention pond out back. But we had a late night — we made it home sometime after 3am from the Halo party at Kevin’s house — so we got a late start on the day. Justin actually didn’t get to sleep until almost 5:30am because he had to drive his parents to the airport at 4:30am. Then I check and the park closed at 5pm … so we decided to skip it. Instead we went to Justin’s parents’ house so I could photograph some flowers and such.

I’m submitting the image below to the pinholeday.org gallery; it’s my favorite of the batch. Once it’s approved you can see it on their site here.

You can see the rest of the shots I took today right here.

I need a new scanner. I have an Epson Perfection 3170 Photo which has been my faithful home-photo-lab companion for years. But I think a bulb burned out in the lid, because if you look at the photos above you’ll notice a dark band across the center of the image. It’s only an issue when scanning medium format negatives — 35mm and flatbed are fine — so I’m hesitant to throw it out since it works great otherwise. Maybe I’ll give it to someone who won’t need to use it for transparencies.

I’d love to get a dedicated negative scanner but I don’t have a grand or two lying around to spare. So I’ll probably get the more reasonably priced Epson 4490.

Today I dug out the Polaroid camera (I think it was a Square Shooter) that I had hacked up a few years ago in an attempt to make a Polaroid back for my Holga (I stopped the project because coincidentally I got Holaroid from Craigslist right after I started hacking).

I cut off the bulk of the front of the camera, covered the big hole with some foam and gaffer’s tape, and stuck a pinhole on the front (the pinhole was made from a section of a soda can).

I didn’t measure the size of the pinhole or the focal length, so I have no idea what the approximate aperture is — and therefore have no ballpark idea how long my exposures should be. I took two test photos inside the house — each exposure was for about five minutes (another thing I didn’t measure).

Interesting subject, I know.

I really, really like this camera. Everything is relatively sharp (Polaroids and pinholes generally are a bit fuzzy by default), and the view is extremely wide angle. The camera was on the edge of the sink, so only about 1-2 feet away from the faucet, but look how far away it looks!

The wall was about 2-3 feet away from the camera in the above photo. This demonstrates just how wide of an angle this camera has — you can see both the front door (left) and the King Kong poster on the stairs on the right. Well, you can see it in the actual print; the scan isn’t the greatest.

I can’t wait to test this camera outside… and I’m definitely shooting with this camera for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (April 27th, mark your calendars).