Cars in the Park
Portland's Homage to the Automobile
Portland's Homage to the Automobile
From June to September of 2011, an exhibition entitled The Allure of the Automobile at the Portland Art Museum was accompanied by a changing display of vintage, modern and custom cars in the Park Blocks in front of the museum. Each weekend a different theme brought a collection of cars.
I attended most of the events carrying a P.90 and a Pinoramic 120 V2 camera. I have produced and sold these and other cameras since 1991. They encompass a 90 degree and 120 degree field of view respectively. Each uses 120 roll film and images across a curved film plane with a 0.012" pinhole placed at the axis of curvature. This makes them what I believe to be a true panoramic camera - an image which is in effect cylindrical across the longer dimension. Along with swing lens cameras and rotating panoramic cameras (both of which I also make), these cameras produce and image which, if presented in the same cylindrical aspect in which they were produced (effectively a curved print with the viewer at the center of the curve), the viewer will perceive the scene with a similar perspective as was present when the image was made.
But an interesting thing happens when these images are presented in flat form - especially when the point of view is close to the subject. I chose to emphasize this effect in photographing the cars in this event.
Because the effective aperture of the pinhole is f/200, the photographs took as much as a minute or more to complete. The effect is often seen in the blurs streaking across the images as people wander in and out of the frame.
