Pinhole Photography Artist Research : Martha Casanave

I have absolutely fallen in love with Martha Casanave’s beautiful pinhole photographs. The first few of her photos posted here are incredibly sharp and has so much depth. She seems to have positioned everything so well, and despite shooting with a pinhole camera, her composition seems perfect and it looks as though she knew exactly how it would turn out on the spot.

She shoots in 4×5 and applies a range of techniques with her pinhole such as the ghosting effect, soft focus, and even submerging her camera underwater!

Amazing ghost effect

Soft focus technique

Sharp and beautifully detailed

Half submerged underwater. Stunning

I am definitely shooting with 4x5in film!

Pinhole Artist Research : Craig Barber

“The slow pace of the pinhole is important to me. It provides a connection to my subject that a faster camera wouldn’t allow.”

Craig Barber is pinhole photographer who focuses on cultural landscape. He has focused his camera on Vietnam, Havana and New York documenting cultures in transition. In an interview by Erin Malone { http://www.withoutlenses.com/articles/interview/visiting-with-craig-j-barber } he reveals that his camera is home made using cardboard, gaffers tape, felt and a piepan, and shoots in a wide range of formats such as 8″ x 10″, 12″ x 20″1/2″ x 14″. He gives evidence of the great potential of homemade pinhole cameras.

Craig’s camera

 

He frequently combines sheets of film side by side to create an ultra wide angle / panaromic photo

 

From his famous book “Ghost in the landscape : Vietnam Revisited”. He visit Vietnam 3 times to make this series, often using the pinhole technique to create “ghosts” in his pictures.

 

One of his work from Havana

 

How Britain Celebrated Christmas during the Second World War

An inspiring article by Amanda Mason on the Imperial War Museums website. It describes how Britain continued to carry out their favorite festival during such difficult times of war, deprivation, separation from loved ones.

“Christmas luxuries were especially hard to come by at a time when even basic foods were scarce. People were forced to find substitutes for key festive ingredients. Gifts were often homemade and practical, and children’s toys were often made from recycled materials. Cards were smaller and printed on flimsy paper.”

It is so inspiring to see that despite the scarcity of material and even basic foods, people did not avert from tradition and made do with what they could, using whatever material they could find to hand make gifts to be presented to their loved ones.

Toys and gifts in a Christmas stocking in 1940 made from low quality wartime paper

Pupils at Fen Ditton Junior School in Cambridgeshire make Christmas decorations. They were making paper chains from scraps of old paper and painted newspaper.

 

Handmade toy seed drill made as a Christmas gift. This seed drill is one of a set of farm tools made during the Second World War by an 11-year-old boy for his sister, who had left home to join the Women’s Land Army. They were all handmade from recycled materials.

This photograph shows Royal Marine J Lynch on a battleship putting the finishing touches on a large doll’s house, complete with furniture, in 1943. In the weeks before Christmas, men and officers in the Royal Navy often put their practical skills to use by making presents for their families back home.

This poster was issued by the National Savings Committee, which encouraged saving, discouraged frivolous spending and promoted public investment in the British war effort.This poster was issued by the National Savings Committee, which encouraged saving, discouraged frivolous spending and promoted public investment in the British war effort.This poster was issued by the National Savings Committee, which encouraged saving, discouraged frivolous spending and promoted public investment in the British war effort.

This poster was issued by the National Savings Committee, which encouraged saving, discouraged frivolous spending and promoted public investment in the British war effort.

Compared to the current situation of intense shopping for Christmas gifts, to the extent of wasting billions of pounds on unwanted gifts, producing millions of tonnes of waste and consequently ruining the environment, the way Christmas was celebrated during these 6 difficult years in Britain seems, so much more perfect. Instead of walking into a shop and buying and buying and buying, people put great effort into making gifts that were undeniably more special, more intimate and more heartwarming. Saving was encouraged and impractical spending was discouraged.

Britain is no longer in the dire situation that she was 75 years ago, we are in a situation where we now have plenty, and can provide for everyone. But this should not give us a reason to be extravagant, or to misemploy our resources, and be fooled by the commercialization of Christmas into making us mindlessly consume more and more. Such times of hardship should remind us of the limitations of the rich earth’s resources, and inspire us to take a step back and think about what really matters.

 

History of Christmas Gift giving

To better understand the subject I have chosen, I began researching the history of Christmas gift giving.

Contrary to what I previously thought were the origins of Christmas, and despite the Three Wise Men’s gift to baby Jesus, gift giving on this holiday originated long before Jesus was born. Based on the information that I gathered from multiple online sources which I will attach below, the tradition of gift giving began in the ancient Roman festival ‘Saturnalia’ in honor of the deity Saturn. This was held on the 17th of December in the Julian Calendar and later expanded with festivities through to the 23rd of December.

“The holiday was celebrated with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, in the Roman Forum, and a public banquet, followed by private gift-giving, continual partying, and a carnival atmosphere that overturned Roman social norms: gambling was permitted, and masters provided table service for their slaves. The poet Catullus called it “the best of days.”

The above is how Wikipedia describes the ancient festival. The winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, has been celebrated in ancient Rome in a festival called ‘Dies Natalis Solis Invicti’ which means “birthday of the unconquered sun”. With the passing of the winter solstice and now the days were starting to get longer again, it was seemingly logical time to honor the “rebirth of the sun god”.

In what was a ‘Victorian Christmas’ described by a number of websites such as BBC, initially, gifts were rather modest – fruits, nuts, sweets and small handmade trinkets. Gifts used to handmade, and “the making of Christmas presents was something seen as a way to enliven the long winter evenings leading up to the great day. The planning and making of gifts started months in advance, with daughters often helping mothers in sewing and needlework. Family members spent a lot of time designing personal gifts for each other.”

Not only did the Victorians exchange gifts with their family and friends-they shared what they had with those less fortunate. Charity often took the form of delivering dinners or gift boxes to the poor on Christmas Day, or pledging money to help the needy.

This really reminded me of a scene from the film ‘A Christmas Carol’ (I have not read the book by Charles Dickens…) when Mr. scrooge, after awaking from his nightmare, sent a turkey to the house of his loyal employee Bob Cratchit.

War against the giving of useless Christmas gifts

in 1912, at the meeting of the Working Girls’ Vacation fund, founded in the previous year to help Manhattan clerks set aside a small amount of money each week, former English actress and prominent public figure Eleanor Robson Belmont asked a packed hall “Have you ever thought that true independence often consists of having the courage to say ‘No’ at the right time?”. Together with American philanthropist Anne Morgan, they started the ‘Society for the Prevention of Useless Gift Giving (SPUG) ‘.

The objective of SPUG, said Belmont, was to “eliminate, by co-operative effort, the custom of giving indiscriminately at Christmas, and to further in every way the true Christian spirit of unselfishness and independent thought, good-will, and sympathetic understanding of the real needs of others.”

The Society boasted boasted a large membership, including former american president Theodore Roosevelt. But wartime rationing and frugality during World War 2 made SPUG redundant, and when prosperity came back to Americans in the ’50s, this glorious movement against wasteful gift-giving had sadly died out.

Links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/victorianchristmas/history.shtml

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/A-Victorian-Christmas/

http://www.biblicalquality.com/Christmas8.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/6811346/Christmas-a-brief-history.html

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/tag/the-history-of-christmas-gift-giving

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/holidays/2012/12/the_war_on_christmas_it_started_100_years_ago_with_the_spugs.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/camille-preston-phd-pcc/reviving-spug-a-new-way-t_b_6268864.html