Making a pinhole camera is pretty simple.  In some cases you can simply take the lens off of a camera and replace it with some tape that has a hole in it.  Here are some instructions.

Via Submitterator

Don’t Turn Back (Final Version)

Don’t Turn Back (First Version)

Here’s the little art problem I’ve been working on for the past few weeks.  It’s one of those things where I have no theory or rule to fall back on in order to make the decision.  Aside from some small touches like removing the Sergeant stripes from the figure’s shoulder, I was mainly trying to decide whether the right side of the image should be dark or light.  Ultimately, after scrutinizing the picture from a distance time after time, I decided that it was more dramatic if it depicted a night scene and if the figure was moving away from a more painterly zone toward a more digitized one.  I also made the road on the left a little more defined.  But canvas isn’t that expensive and I might just decide to hang both versions right next to each other in a gallery.

My own favorite part of the picture is right around the figure’s legs where you can see through to the landscape with that slight glow on the ground and how the shrubbery overlaps the neon line of the leg.  The image is about fear.  It is also connected directly to Jean Cocteau and the myth of Orpheus.  The figure looking back is from a single frame of video I shot of a store sign while walking along Hollywood Boulevard at night.  The road is a sharp bend in Laurel Canyon Boulevard near Mulholland Drive above Los Angeles that I shot through a windshield.  The background landscape is a shoreline I shot from a moving car near Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  The dark palm fronds hanging down are from some throw-away footage I shot in high winds.  The pixelation is the product of blowing up a frame of a digital copy of decomposed celluloid film until the digital artifacts became pronounced.  I made all of these things individual layers and then went in with a digital pen and worked on a trial and error basis to make things come out the way they did.  What is interesting to me about making such an image is how I begin with an initial image – the glowing figure – and shuffle parts of other images on top of and underneath it to build a new image.  It requires an extreme confidence that you will know what you need exactly when you see it.  So you start going through piles of video or photos both on screen and in your head and pull out the pieces that snap into place for a new picture.  It’s like walking up to a leaf on a tree and taking it as the basis for a painting.  You know that from the leaf you will be able to connect to other things and end up with exactly the right final result.

This print measures 68″ x 38″. It’s an original work created from elements used in my film Yellow Plastic Raygun.

Don’t Turn Back

This is my next large canvas print.  I’ve been making original artist prints through a gallery in Los Angeles. They measure 68″ x 38″. They are original works created from images used in my film Yellow Plastic Raygun.  They are not exact frames from the film, but rather artworks based on segments of the film.

Walking After Having Seen Gigantic John Baldessari

Someone at YouTube named Chrspck went into the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on April 10 and shot a photograph of every painting.  Museums and galleries have no business forbidding photography as long as it doesn’t use a flash or get in the way of visitors.  I love seeing all the paintings go by.  It makes me want to go to the museum.

Some abject fool of an artist named Jack Mackie made a deal with the city of Seattle to embed an artwork called Dancers’ Series: Steps into a sidewalk back in 1979.  Then a photographer named Mike Hipple went and did a logical thing; he took a photograph of a public sidewalk with the artwork in it.  Now the nitwit fraudulent artist is suing him for using his artwork in a photograph!  It’s jackasses like this Mackie dude that need to be put out of business.  By this jerk’s reasoning I would have to pay royalties to all of the architects responsible for the design of every single building in the Manhattan skyline if I took a photograph of New York.  Ridiculous!  This fool is an insult to artists and intellectual property courts all over the country.

The only good thing about this Jack Mackie art is that people get to step on it.

I have an idea for a great photograph.  Someone goes up to Seattle with a jackhammer for a 4:00 am dig-and-run operation then takes a photograph of the hole that’s left and its caption reads, ‘Please Fill This Hole.’

And this would be something to do to every public artwork attached to a moronic lawsuit like Mr. Mackie’s. Every time one of these lawsuits is filed, destroy the artwork. Eventually, corporate midgets like Jack Mackie will go away.

And another thing, Mr. Mackie, I recognize the concrete incorporated in your artwork on the sidewalk.  It’s extremely distinctive.  My uncle owns the mill that made that concrete and he will expect to be compensated for the use of his concrete in your public artwork.  You owe him $600,000.  He’s coming to collect.  His name is Lou.  Smile when you open the door.

But no worries, we will have our instant pictures back.  Not even digital cameras are instant.  Not really.  You have to plug them into your computer or printer or something and get your files sorted out and then you may need to do a some digital color correction on them.  But with a Polaroid, you point click and enjoy the little whirring sound for a few seconds.  Then you hold your picture and watch it come to life!  There’s absolutely no good reason why digital should not coexist with analog technologies.  The main difference between working with film and working with digital, as I see it, is this -  with digital you know pretty much exactly what you are going to get when you take a picture.  With analog film you never know what you are going to get.  There’s a wonderful fuzzy zone filled with error and chance that Polaroids allow you to enjoy.  Each picture is a little surprise.