Solargraphs from Weaverville, NC

Last year I visited Q Evon in her home and studio in Weaverville, NC.  She has a wonderfully magical property that looks like something out of Lord of the Rings.  I left her with some of my pre-loaded homemade pinhole cameras and instructions on how to position them for solargraphs.

She just gave them back to me while here for the Decatur Arts Festival and WOW, the images are fantastic. They were set outside for approximately 7 months.  2 out of 3 worked.  When I opened the third one, it had water in it and the paper negative was soggy and smelled awful.  The emulsion had also separated from the paper.

This process is so cool to me – I use BW photo paper in the cameras.  I don’t process them in chemicals, they come right out of the cameras and into the scanner.  Then on the computer i invert the negative image to positive and adjust contrast.  The color is just there, I’m not adding it – like magic.

The view looking South

The lines in the sky is the sun rising/setting for about 7 months.

A happy accident

I couldn’t resist scanning the one that was wet. The emulsion separated from the paper and it was terribly stained.  I simply scanned it and inverted it from negative to positive and voila. Crazy, right?