A wreck on the White River and Northern

Taken sometime late 1975, one of the first pinhole images I attempted remains one of my favorites. Having recently purchased a 250-ton railway crane, I staged a wreck and captured it for posterity. Adding to the realism, I believe, is the fact that the overturned engine and the crane are not clearly visible, as if the photographer did the best he could under the circumstances.

One will notice that the vignetting is off-center. That's because I made the hole by poking the aluminum foil with a pin, judging the center by eye. Obviously I was a bit off the mark, but not enough to ruin the images.

Image specs: As the raw black and white  Polaroid print reveals, placing the pinhole over the front of the lens produces vignetting. Careful cropping and a bit of digital blending makes the "hole" go away. I also electronically tinted these images with a sepia tone to give them the appearance of photos taken a hundred years ago. Lighting was provided by a 100-watt bulb in a floodlight reflector.

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