TryFailTryFailTry...Chinatown

Chinatown Street

Chinatown Plaza

Above: 6x12 frame drawn
Below: Frame cut but wrong size.
Lesson: Measure twice, cut once.

I work for the Strategy and Transformation department (department??? there's only two of us) for a major university hospital. We deal heavily with innovation. Our projects focus on improving the way healthcare is delivered and how medicine is taught. Because the projects step into new worlds there is a certain element of expected failure. My boss's mantra is TryFailTryFailTry...Succeed. I've adopted the phrase to apply to life in general. We succeed but only if we're willing to (and do) fail.

I'm in the process of building an anamorphic pinhole camera that uses 120 film. Anamorphic cameras project images nearly parallel to the film plane rather than perpendicular. The end product is sometimes difficult to make out with images starting and stopping in unexpected ways. Tree tops appear at the top and bottom of the frame, pillars warp into unlikely shapes walls expand and shrink before wrapping back onto themselves...nothing is predictable, adding another layer of unpredictably to an unpredictable method of capturing images. Sample anamorphic images here and here.

Anamorphic pinholes cameras aren't new. I'm not innovating. I'm just attempting something new for me with fingers crossed I will eventually succeed.

(More Photos after the break)
To start the project I bought a 3-inch PVC coupler, which is designed to connect to pieces of plumbing pipe. I measured and marked out a 12cm X 6cm frame on the pipe. Using a Dremmel tool I cut out the window. That was the try. The fail: the window was too tall to hold the film. Another try is in order.

Until I find time (so, so very busy in all areas of my life) here are four "normal" pinhole photos from my walk around L.A.'s Chinatown. All are 6x9 with 2 seconds exposure at F235 using Kodak 160VC.

And thank you to the folks who regularly read this blog. I honestly appreciate it.

Related entries:

• Garbage Out Isn't Always Garbage
• Last of the Great Unions
• Five Tiers of Mediocrity

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Self portrait, Red channel filtered B&W

Chinatown Street