Pinhole experiments

Notes: It is proving extremely difficult and time consuming to get an accurately exposed shot from the pinsta camera. The camera only uses sight lines for composition, it throws out a really wide depth of field, apparently it likes being placed on the floor. Pre-flashing with a 1000 lumen flashlight for 30 seconds saves a significant amount of time when exposing. For the bridge for instance I placed the camera on the ground very near to the edge of the bank but it still picked up a lot of foreground. Because of the nature of filmless photography the image comes out in reverse. For the image of the tree we used a tripod between 2-3ft high and because the light was really bright I did not pre-flash and I set the paper speed at 3 (the light affects the paper speed i.e low/poor light 1, strong light 3, bright light sunny day 6), we exposed for 2 minutes and the image as you can see is over exposed.

Brontë Bridge, f229, speed 1, pre-flashed, exposure time 7 minutes
Penistone Hill, f229, speed 3, tripod, not pre-flashed, exposure time 2 minutes

Chris Marker Sans Soleil (Sunless)

Chris Marker’s speculative travelogue-essay, reflecting on culture and history in narrated letters from Guinea to Japan to Iceland. A poetic documentary tour of Tokyo, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland and San Francisco, Sans Soleil mingles personal reflections with the history of the world. The female narrator reads letters sent by fictional Sandor Krasna, writing from ‘another world’. The spoken word, synthesized sound and haunting visuals investigate relationships between developed and developing societies. Virtuoso editing and special effects conjure the disorientation of a world traveller, journeying through cultures, secret rituals and confusions of time.

“The consummate cine-essay, framed as reportage from a roving cineaste, built mainly from Marker’s observations of the ‘empire of signs’ that is modern Japan and the poverty endemic in Guinea Bissau. Entertainingly provocative speculations on the ‘post-political’ world, haunted by the piano music of Mussorgsky.” Tony Rayns “A treatise on travel, on history, on art and on life, Marker’s film unfolds like an epistolary novel in dialogue with itself. His virtuosity with the camera is matched by the brilliance of the montage.” Bruce Jenkins

Text reproduced from https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/a9bab1d5-f6df-51d3-bdda-5e1beba14602/sans-soleil (accessed 08/03/24)