Posted by Gregg Kemp on September 27th, 2007 — Posted in Pinhole Photography, Shooting the Moon
Last night was the “Harvest” full moon and Carmela and I headed to downtown Durham to set out a pinhole camera at the base of the “The Major” sculpture in the City Center Plaze. “The Major” is a two-ton bronze bull by Michael Waller and Leia Foushee. It was a clear warm night and there were a few people on the streets. I delayed putting out the camera as the area was well lit and I feared someone would notify the police that I was carefully placing a tin can on the sidewalk of the park. We had a bit of a feel that we were part of a “drop-off/pickup”. But we got over that and placed the camera. As soon as we got to the car to leave, some guy came over to study the bull sculpture. He looked local and I suspect he’d seen the sculpture before. We were pretty sure we’d never see that camera again and headed home. But, the next morning when we returned to the scene, there was the tin can camera, totally unmoved, untouched. Thank you, citizens of Durham!
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Posted by Gregg Kemp on September 24th, 2007 — Posted in Art, Life and Cancer, Diary, Pinhole Photography
This week is a big one for me. I finally get my radioiodine coctail. If all goes well, this will begin the destruction of the tumor on my spine. Last time I came within 24 hours of getting the juice, but in the last few hours the tumor began growing like crazy and I had to opt for emergency surgery to allow the surgeon to pare it down. That resulted in another 3 month wait while my body cleansed itself of the iodine used in the surgery. Its all pretty complicated, but now I have another go at destroying the tumor. I’ll be admitted into the hospital on Friday, Sept. 28 where I’ll get the radioiodine and will remain there a couple of days until the NRC Safety guys says its safe for me to be among the public again. (more…)
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Posted by Gregg Kemp on August 7th, 2007 — Posted in Art, Life and Cancer, Diary, Pinhole Photography
I finally got around to scanning the solar print that started this series of blog entries. This is the pinhole camera that I placed on a Holly tree stump in December of 2006. I left it there until we returned to Roanoke Island in May of 2007. We were in the process of packing up and moving to Durham during the two short weeks we were there, so there was no time to develop or even take a look at the paper negative. I finally got around to taking a look at it this month, and it looked pretty interesting to me. But I wasn’t sure how to scan it without destroying it.
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Posted by Gregg Kemp on July 4th, 2007 — Posted in Art, Life and Cancer, Diary, Pinhole Photography
During all of my hospital stays this year, I never slept alone. Carmela has stayed each night, sleeping in a nearby chair or on at least one occasion, sleeping in the waiting room. I never asked her to stay, but I don’t think she ever considered not staying. We often talked into the late evening and even woke up to talk in the middle of some nights. Looking back on it now, I can’t imagine going through it all without her there each night, enjoying each others company. Later on, out of the hospital, we spent many late nights and early mornings just lying in bed, listening to the radio and talking about whatever. Those have become some of the most favorite times of my life. I also now realize what a lost opportunity it was not to have captured some pinhole images of our sleeping in the hospital. Sleep can be a really interesting subject for pinhole photography, especially if you take images of yourself sleeping. You don’t know what you’re going to look like, how much you’ll move around, what the overall effect will be. (more…)
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Last night was the “Harvest” full moon and Carmela and I headed to downtown Durham to set out a pinhole camera at the base of the “The Major” sculpture in the City Center Plaze. “The Major” is a two-ton bronze bull by Michael Waller and Leia Foushee. It was a clear warm night and there were a few people on the streets. I delayed putting out the camera as the area was well lit and I feared someone would notify the police that I was carefully placing a tin can on the sidewalk of the park. We had a bit of a feel that we were part of a “drop-off/pickup”. But we got over that and placed the camera. As soon as we got to the car to leave, some guy came over to study the bull sculpture. He looked local and I suspect he’d seen the sculpture before. We were pretty sure we’d never see that camera again and headed home. But, the next morning when we returned to the scene, there was the tin can camera, totally unmoved, untouched. Thank you, citizens of Durham!