Wicked box

    Working on pinholes is always more of experimenting than a process with preset output. You win some, you loose some. And still when it comes to which is which you might never know.
    I finally succeeded in constructing a mid format pinhole that is capable of rewinding the film, what's not as easy as I thought before. Not being very confident about the light tightness of the '' magic box'' I've run a film through it. 
    

   It turned out not only to be light tight, but it also managed to take some photos-photos that don't really look like they were produced by a pinhole. Just have a look at em.

 
    Course, I knew middle format pinholes would be more detailed, but this surprised me a lot. They look more like they were taken with one of lomo plastic lens cameras. I'd better take advantage of it.
    
 

The Austrian Connection

Today we will be showing you a selection of photos from many of the Austrian homies. These guys are always down for a good session and the photos and videos resulting from those show exactly that. 

But first I will tell you something about me and our scene over here. I am from Vienna and riding scooters since 2006, so thats quite a long time. I'm shooting photos and film for some years now too, so I have a lot I can show you here. 
The Austrian scene is mostly active in Vienna. There are riders in other parts of Austria too, but not quite as much as here in Vienna. You have many of those average park riding scooter kids here, but there are some older, more mature riders as well, shredding the streets and going on trips on a regular basis. And these are the guys I am riding with.

So here we go!

Toby stallin' high in the ditch.

Georg doing a steezy grab over the hip at the ditch

In order to get to spots like that you have to do something for it, in that case hopping a fence.

Never stop hopping fences.

Other spots are some hours away, so hop a train and have a nice trip with the homies for a good sesh.

Georg on the way to Innsbruck

Georg Air to Fakie at Landhausplatz, Innsbruck

Toby chilling at LHP

Especially if youre on the hunt for some good photos you have to get creative, and maybe your photographs are telling a little story like this one.

Flo and David are getting creative in Vienna

David Overcrooking the red barrier. Sadly that spot is gone now..

Another Overcrooked. This ones on a rail and the spot is still existing.

Toby is always killing the biggest spots

Juraj has his 5050s dialed

I hope you liked this fine selection of flicks I shot. Stay tuned for some more!

Photos & Words by Max Kernmayer

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Light leaking into darkness__________________and reverse

    After finishing this can of beer, you are probably already heading for a new one to your fridge and throwing the empty one away.... but keep that can! With a bit of effort it can be very easily transformed into a camera, a pin-hole one.

  Pin-hole photography is tightly connected to the existence of the camera obscura. This term was used for the first time around 400 B.C. when chinese philosopher Mo-Ti realized that light travels in straight lines and all the objects reflect it in all directions. Also Euclid and Aristotle described this phenomenon. 

  But what changed the light tight box with a hole in it, that was used by 16th century painters to get perspectives right, was the invention of photosensitive substance around year 1727, still they did not knew how to fix the picture.

 Also the very first photo, by Joseph Niépce, was taken with a pin-hole camera. You can see the way that shadows moved, as the exposure time was very long.

    Now, how the heck it works: every point of the real image is projected through a tiny hole, as it reflects light, the beam of a light leaks through the hole and creates the reflected image, which is smaller and upside-down inverted. Just like that.

 
   As this might seem to be too theoretical, lets move to the fun part of it. You can transform every light-proof container into a camera, so you really can have some good times constructing your own ones. 

   I'm already practising this kind of magic for like 3 years, and can tell you that it's far less difficult to build one than it might seem to. The most tricky part of the whole process is to get the right hole diameter for the size of your lightsensitive material ( whether it is film or photo paper ) and the distance of it from the hole, but since you can calculate those using an application, it's no longer such a big deal, but don't let yourselves get scared by the numbers you are about to witness, such as 0.14mm diameter, if you don't care just use a tip of a tiny pin and a cutout of can's aluminium wall . And that's that, just wrap it with some black tape and you're ready to go.


   However, the the can isn't the limitation, there is not such a thing. There were many beautiful projects with camera obscura being used truly originally. For instance Jo Babcock turned a van into large format pinhole camera. 
 

Volkswagen Van pinhole camera & Jo Babcock, 1990

 Abelardo Morell is working with two visual layers in one image, using nothing else than a pinhole. He travels around world and turns hotel rooms into giant camera obscura, then he take photos of outside world being blended with dark inside world. 
   He also constructed a transportable tent that is in fact just another camera obscura which project the image from outside onto the surface the tent is set on. 

Abelardo Morell - Camera Obscura Image of the Chrysler Building in Hotel Room, 1999

Abelardo Morell - Tent-Camera Image on Ground: Sand Beach and Rocks.Acadia National Park, Maine - March, 2010

   Justin Quinnell experimented with the way pinholes are used rather than their construction, He realized it's possible to make exposures as long as six months and even longer with can filled with photographic paper.

6 months lasting exposure be Justin Quinnell

Also David sent some of his photos over from Slovenia, that give you a little insight in the process that's going on in the darkroom. The first picture is shot with an old coffee can on 10x15 photo paper.

A contact printed positive from a pinhole for photo paper

Darkroom shots: fixing the photograph

negative and the resulting contact print

my 35mm film pinhole camera made of mints tin

          I've been working with film pinholes recently as the exposures take a lot less this way and since 35mm is the most affordable way to go, that was my choice. With small strangle looking box, nobody will really take notice that you are actually taking photos and I took advantages of it. There's a little traffic series, not much more to say.

Back to the 1930s: the Agfa Billy Record

Working in a museum for 20th century history has its advantages, especially if you are into analog photography like me: a collection of old cameras, literature about classic photography and a fully equipped darkroom are some pleasing features.

But now, history lesson: Apart from the early years of photography in the 1850s, the first half of the 20th century saw a rapid progression in the development photographic processes never seen again. The medium was all of a sudden available for everybody when Kodak invented a system, where you could just buy a camera, shoot the included film and then send it for developing to the Kodak factory. Then you got back your pictures and the reloaded camera.

The use of smaller format film (middle format and 35mm) changed the life of photographers and the dynamics of the photos alike: they were all of a sudden very mobile, armed with a few rolls of film you could go on long journeys depicting your surroundings without having to worry about all that heavy camera equipment. Other milestones: affordable color film and SLR cameras.

A camera produced in this age is the Agfa Billy Record, released in 1933 and shooting in 6x9 format using 120 film. It was a rather cheap amateur camera of which a lot have been sold throughout the years.

When shooting, you can only make minor changes: shutter drom 1/100 to 1/25, aperture from 16 to 8.8 and the focus either on 2 to 5 metres or 5 to infinity. In a nutshell all these stupid numbers just mean that you can't adjust a lot to your light conditions! The camera has no real viewfinder makes photographing with the Billy Record also not easier. So it is more of a lottery than taking good pictures on purpose.

Over the past weekend I managed to get some shots done in Austria and immediately developed the film when getting back to the museum's darkroom to see the results. But have a look yourselves...

where Slovenia, Hungary and Austria meet each other is a particularly nice corner of the world

grass in the wind 

fountain in Vienna

one of the hottest days so far: still life/life standing still

text & photos: David Tiefenthaler

Haske Paris Shakedown

Street jams are rad and trips are even radder. The Haske family combined these two things and went on the raddest experience, taking a trip to the mother of all street jams, the Paris street jam. Dani Cardona and Inaki Gil captured the madness in the french capital on film and topped it up with some words, so here you go:

We decided on meeting 2 hours before the flight, that meant being at the airport at 4 am, we fitted the scooters in a 10 euro bag (with no lock) and prayed for the best. 

4am bcn airport

kitus, dani & damia

dani always manages to spend ridiculous amounts of money on food - 10 euro breakfast

gepe

2 hellish hour bus ride into the city

We arrived to Jeremy Lanfranchi's house at about 1pm, united with Javi, Georgie and Jeremy we headed over to the dissidence warehouse for a sesh. We spent there all afternoon and then headed over to the wise premiere.

georgie, gepe, kitus

i think this is yara haynes doing a feeble

jeremy lanfranchi and kevin demay

kitus

damia and dani cooling down

After one crazy experience leaving the Wise premiere, which involved - trespassing closed metro stations, running away from security (for no reason), Jeremy cutting his eyebrow, randomly walking around under-construction areas of the paris metro, going up some creepy tunnels and tripping out many Parisians, we somehow managed to wake up for the first day of the jam.

the raddest crowd

noe bouchard doing a backflip up the set

georgie and the unfair guys

cory vanlew and lambert judith

The jam then headed over to Palais du Tokyo, we kind of separated from the big spot group and seshed the ledges and obstacles the famous spot offered. Hell what a session, I got a handful of clips from everyone and much fun indeed. 

yara haynes

dani and damia

before heading back home, i asked jeremy if we could stop by the eiffel tour - "sure"

damia, dani, javi and myself

We decided last minute to go to the dissidence warehouse party, it was well worth it. We got there with Jeremy's car and motorbike, one funny trip.

dani and javi freezing their balls on jeremy's bike

wacka flocka

outside with dani and damia

this guy killed it

the bbq fell

porcial

dani feeling it

they did it so many times i don't understand how the police didn't show up

2nd day of the jam was mainly based around the area of la Defense, ending at the 19 stair rail from last year - kenny yap managed a huge 360 over the rail, someone did a fs lipslide and Enzo Commeau took the 2000$ throwing down a bs lipslide. 

slow mornings

dani destroyed this

la defense 19 stair rail

these guys were everywhere around la defense

they arrived too late so the police wasn't a problem

the cash stayed local

Thanks to anyone who seshed with us, the Paris locals, Gepe for making this trip possible, Georgie for farting in that security guy's face and the Lanfranchi's for hosting us for 3 days.

Photos by Dani Cardona & Iñaki Gil

Words by Iñaki Gil