You remember the old joke about someone walking up to a great photographer and asking "How do you take so many great photos?" and the photographer replies, "The only secret is f/8 and be there." Well, there's a lot of truth in that old addage--but for some photographers the trick of getting great images is "f295 and be there!" F295, if you haven't guessed, is the approximate aperture of a pinhole camera.
And if you've ever wondered just how you could build a pinhole camera yourself, or been curious about exactly how a Daguerreotype is made, or perhaps how to build your own 8 x 10-inch view camera, then the f295 Symposium on Lensless, Alternative and Adaptive photographic
processes that's being held in Pittsburgh, PA from April 26-29, 2007 is an event you shouldn't miss. The symposium will bring together aficionados of a variety of old-time photographic techniques along with experts in the various fields for four days of lectures, workshops, demonstrations and exhibitions. I absolutely love these early photographic processes and I'm thrilled that this organization is working so hard to keep the techniques alive. Talk about stepping into a cool photographic time machine! (more...)