Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

My first successful Pinhole Portrait was, of course, Maria. I believe the only good portraits are those of people I like very much or love. Those are the good ones, so I persuaded Maria to pose for a second, something she hates to do.

I was pleased at this image of Maria from a completely different perspective, not literal, but evocative. It captured her indirectly, her Willa Cather quality that I love.

Pinhole photography is, for me, the most challenging photography yet. It is hard to get a good pinhole photograph, at least for me.

Pinhole photography is one of the oldest and simplest, perhaps purest forms of photography. A pinhole camera is a camera without a lens and with a single small aperture – essentially a light-proof box with a very small hole on one side, the first lens.

Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box. You can easily construct this camera yourself using match boxes (or any box), paper, and duct tape.

The small amount of light passing through this pin-sized hole produces an image on a photographic film or image sensor. This is known as the camera obscura effect.

If digital photography is meant to be precise, pinhole photography is meant to be obscure. Pinhole photography is the absolute opposite of digital photography in every imaginable way, so it takes a lot of experimenting and getting used to. You have to yourself all of the things the modern digital camera does for you.

Some writings from ancient China suggest pinholes were used to record images thousands of years ago. The first known description of pinhole photography was found in an 1856 book called The Stereoscope by Scottish inventor David Brewster. He described an invention as a “camera without lenses, and with only a pin-hole.” A book in 1764 by scientist refers to “pin-hole” in the context of optics.

I use my regular Canon 5 D for Pinhole photos, I can’t deal with a small paper box. I tried one, and it perished quickly in the rain and cold and snow of upstate New York. Too fragile for a farm.

I bought a Rising Pinhole lens for $20.

And then I start playing with the Aperture and ISO and White Light balance. I take 100 shots for every one that works, and I am constantly turning around, running back and forth, changing the distance and focal speed, moving the tripod to get the light or the sun in the right place. Mostly, I miss.

You need a strong ego and tons of patience to do digital photography. I am not famous for being patient or for details, so this, like dog training, is a spiritual exercise for me.

I know now that cameras are amazing but I also know that it is the human behind the camera who makes a photograph special or unusual. It’s his or her perspective, eye, passion, emotions and knowledge of light and the camera itself that makes for a really good photo.

It isn’t what the camera sees, it’s what the photographer sees.

I see lots of photos sailing across the Internet, but very few touch me or  tell me much about the photographer, and I think of every photograph I take as a window into my soul. My proudest moment as a photographer when a woman came up to me and asked if I was Jon Katz.

That never happened before and probably will never happen again.

I was, I said, how do you know me. I knew you from your photographs she said. I wanted to hug and kiss her (I did not.)

I’m not sure anybody else sees it that way, but I do. Every photo has some emotion for me, and I have studies light and angles and settings every day for nearly 10 years now, I am beginning to understand some of it.

I use a computerized digital camera that has a pinpoint focus, automatic focus, image stabilizer and other tools that help me but also keep me from really understand light and how it works to make a great photograph.

I see every picture I take as a story about life, not just a recording of what’s in front of me. The Pinhole look has always fascinated me because the images are so timeless and even dramatic.

They take us back to another time because they are from another time. We are no longer used to this simplicity in the digital era, the early photos were not literal or crystal clear, but they evoked something.

Anyone with a camera like mine or a late-model Iphone can take a technically proficient photo, the camera does 80 per cent of the work, just like an Apple computer. You may never really get to understand the process, which is quite mystical and even magical.

So the Pinhole for me takes me back to the beginning of photography, when everything depended on light and patience, and a vision for every image.

Maria was a good choice for me, and I loved the way the Pinhole light caught the sun reflecting on her face and casting a shadow. It highlighted the strength I see in her, my Willa Cather woman, I call her.

I ever shoot directly into the sun with a Pinhole unless I want an explosion of light and brightness. I try to get the sun directly  behind me. I change the Aperture and USO and shoot on manual most of the time.

This was my first successful portrait and I learned a lot from it. I’m hoping to work on Pinhole photography this week and will share the work, if I can figure out how do it.

Pinhole photography is perhaps the oldest form of photography, and the simplest. It is essential a tiny hold made in a piece of paper or wood or metal and exposed to the light, usually in an enclosed box of some kind.

I’ve been experimenting with pinhole photography these past few months and am slowly and with great care and many notes figuring out how to capture images in this very limited way with absolutely none of the modern tools of photography – image stabilizers, auto focus, or computer-aided color extraction.

It has been difficult, but I’ve got some images I like. I’ll share them over the next few days. You must use a tripod and try a thousand different settings if you’re using a digital camera.

This one is of one of our sheep captured standing in the morning light on the edge of a flooded pond, the scrambled light comes from the sun. I liked it.

Wayne loves my new hat and asked to wear it during Meditation Class. He was wild about the buttons. His commitment ceremony with Ruth. The ceremony is on May 15 in the Mansion Great Room.

I’ve ordered a chocolate olive oil cake for the couple, chocolate cupcakes for the people at the ceremony. I’ve ordered flowers – bouquets, corsages, vases for the food table.

I have a  friend – Kitty – creating a “Commitment Ceremony” certificate, the lettering by artist Lynne McCann since Ruth was disappointed there wouldn’t be a marriage certificate (Wayne could not care less).

The Army of Good has sent special napkins with “Ruth And Wayne” written on them, a dress for Ruth and I got Wayne new sweatpants and a dark pullover shirt.

The Army Of Good sent a box of shirts for Ruth, they fit perfectly.

I’m collecting and printing out poems and declarations of love and commitment to read and hand out to the wedding party. In case I haven’t mentioned it, I am conducting the ceremony and am also Best Man for Wayne, I hold the rings.

I got each of them the Angel Pins they wanted.

I’m paying a musician $60 to come and sing.

I also searched far and wide for matching slippers for Ruth, she wanted flat dress shoes (“I’ll topple over on heels,” she cautioned) and they had to be blue. It took me awhile, but I found them. She loves them.

I’m excited and am taking this seriously. I really want them to celebrate their love in dignity and style, this is very big deal to them.

If you wish to contribute to the wedding, you can donate via Paypal, [email protected] or Jon Katz, Wedding, P.O.  Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. I am happy to be celebrating love and commitment in this way, and am writing something just for them to read at the ceremony.

It is brave and wonderful of them to find love in a place and time where so many people have left it  behind or fear they will never find it again. Good for them, I want to honor their love.

I was walking on Main Street the other day and I ran into an older couple, he had three of the ugliest dogs I have ever seen on a leash. They were grumpy dogs, one was drooling, the other smelled really bad, and the third seemed like a dog from outer space that only flies could love, he was so out of it. All three were shaped oddly and out of proportion.

“We rescued them all from bad people,” she said proudly, full of love for them.

The couple spotted me and knew who I was and insisted I meet their three dogs. I went over and the introduced myself to the dogs, and the couple just gushed. “Aren’t they beautiful? We are so lucky to have such beautiful and wonderful dogs! I had no choice but to fuss over Mickey, Agnes, and Storm.”

I nodded and smiled. I congratulated them on their good dog fortune. They beamed at my endorsement.

I was thinking about this sweet couple and these very lucky dogs.

I feel the same way about my dogs, and I have often thought that everybody loves their dogs and thinks they are great and wonderful and beautiful. That is the mystical power of dogs, to give love and draw love.

I saw my three dogs on the back porch this morning and I thought the same thing this couple thought. Once again, I have some great dogs. Red is the veteran, the anchor, the close-to-perfect Ur dog who does everything and causes no trouble.

Fate is our perennial teenage dog,  an enthusiasm and love and joy machine, Fate has more fun not herding sheep than any border could have working with them. But adds the perfect balance to the mix, a perennial trouble-maker, King Of The Hill, his mayhem balanced with his big heart and loving was.

My dogs always seem to want to pose for me, they fan out in a light look at the camera, except for Red, who never looks directly into the camera.

These dogs might seem  ugly or strange to other people, how would I know?

I don’t know if I see them in any way but the way in which I want or need to see them. Maybe they are my Mickey, Agnes and Storm.

This is one of the great things about dogs, they become what they need us to be, and we see them in the way we need to see them. If you have a great dog, raise our hand..

My friend Cynthia Daniello, an 84-year-old writer and blogger from Virginia, has saved the gardens at  her independent living facility in Bedford, Virginia.

Yesterday, the curiously arrogant and arbitrary owners of Joseph’s Dream, the residence where she lives, withdrew its demand that the residents tear up or otherwise destroy their gardens so they can all be uniform and stacked only with approved flowers.

Unfortunately, she was not able to save the residents bird feeders, the facility’s management – they are owned by Metropolitan Properties of Washington, Virginia, insists they are “dirty’ and attracted unwanted squirrels and rodents. The angry and frightened residents had begun taking down their bird feeders, fearing promised “inspections.”

The residents were deeply upset by these Draconian regulations, and most were afraid to protest, they were afraid of being evicted. Cynthia led the resistance.

A week ago, she started her own blog, My Never Ending Story. You can e-mail Cynthias at [email protected].

The readers on my blog chimed in and many wrote letters to Joseph Moore, the person behind the bans. He is [email protected] if anybody wishes to write to him. I also called a dozen reporters and TV producers and I know at least two contacted Metropolitan Properties.

Soon after, Mr. Moore decided the garden ban was “ambiguous” and backed down, insisting only that no flowers be more than 10 inches high. I can’t quite imagine why, unless the management is just into blind control and stifling the creativity and individuality and creativity of the aged.

I have the greatest admiration and respect for Cynthia Daniello, who chose to speak her mind and go to bat for the vulnerable. I can say from my own work that the aging desperately need to have the opportunity to have living things around them, and to use the creativity and energy it takes to have a successful and healthy garden.

Every expert on the aging would testify that these activities – bird watching and gardening – are precisely what the elderly should be encouraged to be doing, not banned. I can’t imaging what their motives are, and Joseph Moore is not interested in speaking with me about it.

Cynthia has been forbidden to have a cat “warming cottage” on her porch, she keeps it for a feral cat that lives in her community. And she is concerned for some of the residents who cherished their feeders and spent beautiful hours watching birds from outside of their window.

Cynthia Daniello is in a wheel chair, but her independence and moral strength are in no way diminished. I think the management of Joseph’s Dream,  her independence living facility, have not heard the end of this, and I wouldn’t bet against those bird feeders returning either.