Around Town
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PROCESSIONS, PAGANS AND PURPOSE
* Beltane Fire Festival The 20th anniversary of the wild, blazing ritual festival welcoming in the spring. Join the May Queen (pictured), her consort the Green Man. armies of White Women and naked Red Men and around 10,000 revellers up Calton Hill. Ticket price still to be confirmed, but remember to decant any alcohol into plastic bottles. Edinburgh, Calton Hill, Mon 30 Apr
* Circus Starr This ‘circus- with-a-purpose’, resplendent with clowns. acrobats. aerial artists and a live band, tours the UK raising money for local charities, on this occasion the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice. Call 0870 167 6177 to book. Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, Fri 27 Apr.
# Maydaze Moving to a new location in the Merchant City, Maydaze returns with a familiar spring feast of free music. dance. entertainment and fun for all the family. The traditional May Day Rally — organised by the Glasgow Trades Union Council - will precede the event, leaving George Square at 11.30am and following a route through the city centre before arriving at the Old Fruitmarket. Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow. Sun 6 May.
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As Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day looms, Sara McMillan explains why she’s a devotee of the most lo-tech of art forms
ontemporary life is cluttered with days
commemorating anything and everything. April
30 is. of all things. Hairstyle Appreciation Day. Personally I’m not especially interested in celebrating perfectly coiffed locks. but occasionally one of these events - marked out by a group of cult enthusiasts offers open. unsuspecting minds a peek into a new world. For sortie. this is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. celebrated every year on September ll). lior me. and a few others I know. it‘s Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. which always falls on the last Sunday in April.
A pinhole camera is simply a lensless camera that uses the fundamental law of light diffraction in order to work its magic. In a pinhole camera. light passes through a small point projecting an organised. upside down. image on the surface it first encounters. (‘over the surface with photosensitive film and you can capture any image -- wide angled. with almost zero depth of field and a characteristic soft focus.
Since there‘s no lens. a pinhole camera can be crafted from just about anything 7- a cereal box. an old Polaroid camera. even Lego (seriously -- check out www.found photography.com to see ftlll instructions on how to make your own). One enthusiast has even created (and sold on eBay) the Smileycam. Small enough to fit in your mouth. the Smileycam lets you see the world through the eyes of your tonsils. a perspective all too often overlooked in our busy. distracted lives.
Pinhole cameras inspire strange levels of devotion in their followers: enthusiasts will stand dutifully next to their home-made camera for It) minutes or more in the
bleeding cold to capture a simple shaft of light. The reaction of light passing through a lensless hole forces the photographer to think of objects as something softer. more fluid. distorted. unreal. After viewing the world through this (non) lens. it becomes increasingly difficult to go back.
Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day has been running since 2()()l. and now thousands of people from all round the world spend the day taking pinhole photographs and sharing the results in the Pinhole Day online gallery. I joined the movement last year. when two friends who were already pinhole aficionados invited us to celebrate with them.
We drove out to (‘rammond for a walk along the River Almond. I had been to this spot many times before: but this time I was aware of every shadow. every ripple of light. the subtlety of every texture. The five of us walked around. each trying our hand at taking artsy photographs of tree roots and the walled separation of earth and sea. We embraced the slow. lo-ti nature of pinhole photography. We posed. ridiculously and painfully. crouching contortedly on top of each other in the doorway of a ruined building. Each exposure time is dependent on the strength and directness of the light. some taking just seconds while others need minutes. ()ur poses. formed under cloudy skies. seemed to last forever.
World Pinhole Photography Day is on Sun 29 Apr. The online gallery is at www.pinholeday.org. To find out how you can get involved, visit shop.lomography.comlpinhole/
26 Apr 10 May 2007 THE LIST 2"