Pinhole Photography and Derbyshire Megaliths

My love affair with pinhole goes from strength to strength, and it has been joined by Fujifilm Provia 1ooF.  I was originally planning on solely  using Ilford FP4 Plus with my pinhole, but reciprocity failure starts starts within seconds on most Ilford films.  However Provia 100F can be exposed for 2 mins before reciprocity failure kicks in – which is ideal for pinhole, given that the Zero Image Pinhole 612B has an aperture of f/158.  Using FP4 would mean mammoth exposures - but more of that later.

My other recent love is megalithic monuments in the Derbyshire Peak District.  One of the largest areas is the Barbrook complex which includes a stone circle (Barbrook I), a ring cairn (Barbrook II), many burial mounds and even a small settlement.  All that and its only about 20 minutes from my home.

I love the colours in the sky here.  My only regret on the day was that I didn’t appreciate that you can still use Provia 100F for exposures beyond 2 minutes.  Since then I have exposed 100F for 7 minutes using my pinhole and the results have been great.

I like the movement in the clouds here, again I wish I had been more adventurous with my exposure times though.

I started my pinhole adventure in late June shooting wide at 12 x 6 (thats 6 shots a roll!).  Since then I’ve dropped down to 9 x 6 because I felt the vignetting at the edges was a bit too much (but more of that later).  I was watching Steve Gosling on Landscape GB, he does his landscapes in 6 x6 format when using his pinhole.  Not quite sure if I can envisage myself using 6 x6 for landscape, flowers maybe.  One thing Steve did was to flip one of his images to make it more pleasing on the eye (and it was).  I know that this can be done in a wet dark room, but for what I am doing, I don’t think it would be “authentic”.  These standing stones have been around for millennia and other people better placed than me have put the stones down the way that they are, so who am I to change their vision?

BOOM! Here it clicked for me (so to speak).  The dawn light just kissing the first two stones at Nine Stone Close (above), the mist adding to the softness of the pinhole – it all just came together for me on this shot.  What aided this I felt was that my metering is getting better.  Having got a TTL viewfinder for my Bronica, (yes I realised that didn’t help with the pinhole!) I got a spot meter.  With that and following a suggestion from Dav Thomas I got a book on exposures and the zone system – once you  accept that everything is 18% grey everything falls in to place )

In this really mixed light situation at Doll Tor Stone (above and below), I managed to (I think!) balance the shadows and the highlights quite well.  Provia has a nice latitude I think which is quite forgiving (I’m not going to take all the credit for this exposure). Doll Tor is quite an intimate location in mixed woodland.  Not only does the site have a small circle, there are a number of cairns nearby which have shown evidence of cremations.

Having settled on 9 x 6 as my format of choice, and having understood exposure better I thought I would revisit 12 x 6.  I went back to Barbrook II stone circle, to catch some evening light, hoping that the low sun would cast shadows that would extenuate the low lying stone circle.  After a small bout of photographer rage at another photographer who was clambering all over the site and not making any account of me and what I was trying to shoot (e.g the whole site).  After 40 mins I got the site to myself again and created this.

I’m crouching behind the tripod so as to avoid my shadows being cast over the site.  I added a couple of seconds to the exposure in an effort to bring out the detail around the edges and so that the vignetting was perhaps not as heavy as it could have been.

I’ve yet to develop a couple of rolls of Ilford Pan F, which is rated at ISO 50, that I took on this trip too.  Unfortunately despite the long exposures the idiot I’ve mentioned may well have been in shot.  As an aside I was in the local woods today (Sat 22nd Oct) and one Pan F shot took 38 mins.  I initially metered for an exposure of 4 secs @ f/22 which converts to 3 minutes @ f/158, but as Ilford Pan F starts to fail after a couple of seconds I had to increase my time to account for reciprocity failure by a factor of 1.49.  I may well try to develop these films tomorrow if I have the time.

The problem (if it is a problem) with Derbyshire Stone Circles, is that with a couple of exceptions they are very low lying with few stones rising  above a metre in height.  As a result in the summer and autumn grass and bracken almost engulf most sites, and cairns are hard to spot.  Come the winter and early spring these should be more easy to spot, and hopefully be better to shoot with the low sun (and hence long shadows) and less undergrowth (though I do wonder about bringing some shears along just in case!).

A burial cairn in the cairn field that lies between Barbrook II and Barbrook I.

This is the tallest stone in the Barbrook I stone circle.  According to what research I have done to date, Barbrook I is one of the best examples of a stone circle in the Peak District.  Its quite over grown, but with the seasons changing this (I hope) should die back.  Though if this is one of the best examples of a stone circle, I think I might have lower my sights in terms of what I want to achieve.

I love making pinhole images of standing stones, the pinhole’s in built softness adds to the timelessness of the stones I feel – or is that me being over romantic?  I still need to develop an overall style I feel.  With the pin hole I have to brave and get in closer and lower, as the pinhole is  W  I  D  E  !

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