Photo Essays is a series on the Phoblographer where photographers get to candidly speak their mind about a specific subject or project of theirs. Want to submit? Send them to editors@thephoblographer.com.
All Images By Tomasz Cuncvir. Used with Permission.
I wanted to present you some of my work I did back in 2010/2011 with a similar design. I have updated it since to make it a SLIT SCAN MATCHBOX PINHOLE CAMERA! (world’s first, perhaps) 🙂 I am attaching those photos as well at the end of this email, should you be interested. Films were Agfa APX 100 New, And Kodak Portra 160. Those photographs come from my first exhibition in Nowa Ruda, June 2011.
As far as slit scan is concerned I can’t do much more about image quality. The only way to go is ISO 400 or 800 at best, very sunny day and a good subject. I am making it a whole project: Piertotum Locomotor – everything that moves, from cars, bicycles, trains, planes, boats and skiers (I live in the Alps) but it is going to take a while, as everything. I should get an affair with someone from CineStill or some other film sponsor, because my camera consumes the whole roll of 36mm film in 3 seconds doing slit scans. I use an angled hexagon screwdriver, hand wound, as a motor.
The only modification to the standard matchbox pinhole camera I made is to add two razor blades to a film (matches) trace, to create a slit. I did many of those „standard” cameras with kids in the kindergarten as a part of „science” lessons. Few kids came up with the idea of cutting the traces in different forms: hearts, triangles etc. I am sending you some examples below. Those heart-shaped pictures are made by my friend Magdalena Filcek, an Artist Painter and a certified hot air ballon instructor.