Happiness is, when you see your Big Picture in the Exhibition. 
-Nishant Julian Minj
Exhibition – Final step in the marathon!
So finally the day came, for what we worked for past two weeks. Lots of fun and lots of learning. The journey from a small tin can pin-hole camera to THE BIG PICTURE has now come to the finale. The Exhibition.
We worked over time, some till 3:00 am, still came early morning to work on the display.
Finishing the work just in time, we were happy with the final output. The Exhibition. And People loved it. Our work with the pin-hole camera ignited a new spark in the viewers, something we say ‘slow fun’.
The Exhibition goes on as Andy explains to Mr. Pradyumna Vyas, Director of National Institute of Design, Paldi, about the entire process we went through to get to the big picture.
You know you did a good work when the director praises your work. And at the end, Andy and Ben assembled all of us students to a small talk. We got congratulated for putting up the good work. Claps !! for us. Happy moment!
And to end the day, a final selfie!
Thanks you, to all the teams who worked really hard to set up everything for exhibition.
-Nishant Julian Minj
Getting the BIGGER pictures from films!
Like mentioned in the previous post, We are now done with all our exposures and had the last of our films developed. This time we printed our large format negatives in the dark room at the Gandhinagar campus, using the ‘beast’ of an enlarger that you can see in the images below. It was indeed, a magic for our eyes.
With all the images developed, It was time for the final step in the marathon;The exhibition! For more updates, keep visiting!
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In an unfortunate turn of events,we were denied permission to put forth a humble exhibition of our work to the masses at Sabarmati Station.
Photo Papers to Films
The second day at Sabarmati Railway station. We switched from photo papers to films. The thing with films is, they require less exposure time (approx 10-15 sec in bright sunlight) and so we need to be extra careful with keeping our pin hole camera steady. Also because of using films, we can get bigger prints, even as big as The Big Picture !!
Just like yesterday, we made a dark room, but with a little difference. It was made to develop films and the composition of chemical used were different. Tried a lot of exposures throughout the day. We took some really good shots, and kept some exposed ones for development tomorrow.
Below are some of the process we went through today:
Look out for more posts after we enlarge the films on the Big Paper !
-Nishant Julian Minj
Come One, Come All!
Hurray!! We made a BIG PICTURE!!
Its our second week in the International Open Elective 2016. After a week of exploration with various sized tins as pinhole cameras, it was time for us to go out in the wild to take the BIG PICTURE !
We went out to the Sabarmati Railway Station with all our tools. Instructed on the initial set of protocols (both safety and process related) by Andy, we headed out to the train yard to the carriage that we were supposed to convert into a pinhole camera.
Our group instantly got into business, making the place workable, by clearing stuff out and taping the light apertures in the carriage. Once the camera was all setup we were taken in batches inside the camera. What we saw there was amazing! The scenario was like we were actually inside the pinhole camera that we use to make pictures with all through out the first week and we were able to see the picture on the walls there.
After we were all given a tour of the “man-sized railway carriage camera”, Andy and Ben set out to make the BIG PICTURE. We were really curious to see the end result and finally there came Ben with our first big picture of the course!
High fives and Hurrays blared all around the station 😀
It was a long, long day for all of us and yet we were all unaware of the time in creating the big picture. As the sun set in the train yard, we packed all our stuffs and headed back.
Looking for a week ahead of more fun and more big pictures !!
-Arumani Muthu J M
Getting critiqued !
We made pictures in a dark room (Kalol station’s waiting room) that we made from scratch.It was time for our pictures to be evaluated by our course coordinator, Andy Stark.
Now that we have got the knack of exposing our tins, better than the initial days, Andy reviewed our works and suggested improvements on what could have been done better with our pictures.
Its time for us to improve ourselves on other aspects of picture making like framing, composition, angles and so on.
We have to get these things in our head before we head out to railway station again make the BIGGEST PICTURE with the entire RAILWAY CARRIAGE as our pinhole camera!!
-Arumani Muthu J M
From “Waiting room” to a “Dark Room”
Alright. You heard the story of us reaching the “Kalol” station. Next up is how the bunch of us turned the railway station’s “Waiting room” into a “Dark Room” and developed pictures that we captured around the station.
The major task for our group was to setup a pitch dark room for developing the pictures that were to be captured. We went on to measure the windows and doors and cut out from rolls and rolls of black plastic sheet that we had carried to the venue. Some adventurers like Akshay Chandekar, even climbed on top of a ladder for covering up the exhaust fan space, to prevent light from entering the room.
Even when we are in the process of making the dark room, and while clicking pictures with nothing but aluminium boxes, we instilled the curiosity of a lot of passersby, who dropped in, asked questions, and even clicked pictures with Andy!
The station master Mr. Tapan Kumar Bhagat was dear enough to not only grant us permission to use the station facilities for the day but didn’t miss a chance to come visit us and wished the best for the day’s activities.
We were running to and fro in batches to expose the tins for test shots, develop them in the dark room, and making bigger and better pictures this time. We just grabbed a quick snack, skipping our lunch to make proper use of the never stopping Sun. Even though it was too hectic a Saturday, our event was quite the crowd puller!!!
Arumani Muthu J M
If Its Big, It Ain’t Easy
We did not think about it at first, but Big tins have their own problems. So our Big tin pin-hole camera came along with it. The transportation problem. Yes, its a Big problem.
As you can see below we tried a few times to get put two big pin-hole cameras. A tedious task and more if u are going to sit next to it for the entire trip.
Finally it was decided to take along with Andy and Ben one big tin pin-hole camera, Bertie.
And the rest, Bob, Bertha and Betty had to come with us in cabs. And that’s were the problem started. All the cabs refused to drop us to Kalol station. Reasons included; can’t take the box, kalol is outside our work area, cops, unsafe for vehicle, etc. And loading autos were way too expensive!
But, luckily for us, we got a ride from one of our friendly guards of NID campus. And he dropped us all including Betty, Bertha and Bob to Kalol railway station in his Maruti Suzuki Eeco.
-Nishant Julian Minj
The Big Picture - NID 2016 