gnomon

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Gnomon – an object that casts a shadow used as an indicator. Why is this the title of this series? Pretension and a love of obscure words is mostly why. Seriously, I walk around with this ridiculous looking plastic camera all taped up so it won’t leak light onto the film until I’m ready, and when I see something that I think will look interesting square and all centered up, these images are the sort of things that end up looking the best. Then I began to notice that most of them are gnomons — things that stick up and cast a shadow. So there you go – an obscure, and pedantically pretentious word that actually describes this series pretty well. How could I possibly resist? Descriptive, enigmatic, Latinate with Greek origins, with just a soupcon of the mysterious mutterings of an ancient initiate order – dang, it just rang all the bells.

technical details

These are all taken with either a Holga or Diana camera. These wonderful beasts boast a single plastic meniscus lens. Without liberal application of gaffer’s tape, they leak light worse than a 90 year old prostate leaks…. well, you get the idea. Beloved by art students everywhere, they can be loaded with Tri-x film, taken out into bright daylight and used to herd the light onto the film. It vignettes horribly, yet is amazingly sharp right in the middle of the frame. One has to estimate the distance to the subject, and then focus the camera using some ideograms on the lens barrel. The nutty thing is, it can take some really neat photos. Using a Holga is like owning a cat – you just think you are calling the shots.