Topic: Mom asked me a question that got me scratching my head?

[Francois]

Mom... she always asks the toughest questions to answer.
Last night (well... she doesn't sleep much) she heard on the radio an interview with a reporter who had the chance to test out Huawei's new super duper cell phone. The one with 3 cameras and a top ISO of over 400,000 (yes, over four hundred thousand). She was very impressed by what she heard, so during breakfast she popped the killer question. With all that this phone does, why are you spending so much time building boxes with tiny holes in them?

Sadly, with my state of sleepiness and having a piece of toast in my mouth, I couldn't find a logical answer...

[John Robison]

Just tell her, "Boxes with tiny holes!? That's nothing, I'm moving on to wet plate next."

Honestly, does everything we do have to have a logical reason? I mean, why write poetry, why make any art at all....or pursue any hobby at all?

Why make a hand made card for a loved one when a Hallmark card can be had for a couple of bucks?   

Well, you get the picture.

[ManuelL]

While In could have some answers to that question, my instinct tells me, never to get involved in this kind of family arguments. There could be always be another level hidden behind this type of question.

[irv_b]

Just ask her for the 300+ dollars it cost to buy,against the $10 it cost you to make your last box with a little hole in!

[Francois]

10$ ?
You're drastically overestimating 
I'm now working on two that are made from scratch I have in the garage. I'll have to say the cost doesn't contain an hourly salary... But I have the time.

[Faintandfuzzy]

Ask her why people paint or draw when a camera does it better.  😜

[Francois]

That she probably would have some answer for since my grandma painted...
Then again, she probably would have an answer for pretty much anything...

[Indofunk]

Yeah, if my mom had asked me that, I'd probably have given her a little shrug and a Mona Lisa smile ... though she is artistic, so she probably wouldn't ask me that. My dad, however, is an engineer's engineer and constantly questions why I play music, take photos, am not a vice president at a Fortune 500 company, etc. He definitely gets the shrug and Mona Lisa smile

[Bryan]

When someone asks me why I shoot film I usually say it’s because I enjoy it.  Why try to rationalize it if it’s something you enjoy.

[Francois]

I know but still... It came from Mom....
You ever tried to question Mom? Especially if she has that"Italian mamma" sensibility?

[Kai-san]

I'm afraid you will have to tell your mum the harsh truth about the oh-so-wonderful cell phone. The making of such a phone (and digital cameras, i-pads etc.) requires what we call blood metals. The expression stems from Congo, the foremost supplier of these rare metals where people die in the fighting over these commodities. In addition these metals are highly toxic and they do not only poison the environment, but also the people working in these mines. And in Congo many of them are children working under conditions that are best described as slavery. And then there are of course the batteries; lithium is also highly toxic and the poisoning of the environment from these mines are now disastrous. What a wonderful world..... 

[Francois]

Pretty much what I was thinking. A lot of the world's lithium comes from Canada's Abitibi region in northern Quebec.
This is mostly a mining and forestry region. You should see the ecological disasters that are going on there far away from prying eyes. It takes 8 hours to cross the La Vérendrye national park by car, and even then you've not reached your destination. It's a very big place and very distant. I've been in the province all my life and still never have been there. During the summer months, the area also happens to be heavily guarded by black flies, deer flies, mosquitoes, horse flies, biting midges... we say that in that region there are only two seasons: heating oil season and insect repellent season

But no matter what, I'm still working on my latest "monstrosity". It's going to be a sweet telephoto pinhole camera.
I did make a few things wrong while building it, like accidentally putting the shutter on the left once again (oops) and forgetting to properly seal the lens cone... I guess it's going to be hockey tape to the rescue once more! 

[Kai-san]

How on earth do you make a telephoto pinhole??? Do you use an extra long hole? 

[Francois]

That's actually the name I was going for when I was thinking about what to call it
It's just a 6x9 camera with a 384mm focal length and a 0.87mm hole. It should give me a 16° viewing angle and an aperture of f/441.
I have to make a viewfinder for it. Right now it's getting close to the painting stage. And like with my usual builds, it's almost completely made from what would be considered junk materials.

[John Robison]

That's actually the name I was going for when I was thinking about what to call it
It's just a 6x9 camera with a 384mm focal length and a 0.87mm hole. It should give me a 16° viewing angle and an aperture of f/441.
I have to make a viewfinder for it. Right now it's getting close to the painting stage. And like with my usual builds, it's almost completely made from what would be considered junk materials.

I'm starting to drift off the Mom topic but.....
You should try a lensed/pinhole hybrid 6X9 by using a long lens, such as a +3 close up lens (FL 333mm) at near pinhole apertures. A 1.3mm hole will be f256

[Francois]

Could do something like that. I have to keep some ideas for future projects
I have had a plan for years that involved using some cheap reading glasses for the optics.

[JoeV]

Harman Direct Positive prints from a pinhole camera are a wonderfully unique, individual art object that defy direct comparison to digital images. They’re physical, one-of-a-kind objects, like wet Polaroids.

[Francois]

Hey Joe!
Long time no see!