With all the film photography I do at car graveyards using ancient hardware, it was inevitable that I would hack up some cameras and swap their shutter and lens assemblies for 1820s-type pinhole lenses. Pinhole cameras get some interesting results, particularly when you build one out of a 2002 Toyota Camry side mirror, and I have managed to convince a film-industry professional to take the plunge into the world of junkyard pinhole camera film photography.
The camera involved began life as a late-1940s Sears Tower 34 box camera, then received a pinhole lens made from beer-can aluminum and held in place with J-B Weld.
I took this camera to a Denver-area boneyard and shot a roll, then shipped it off to a friend in Southern California who builds ridiculous race cars for fun and works on cameras for the filmmaking business for his day job: Alex Vendler, whose work can be seen on big and small screens the world over. He's no stranger to junkyards, thanks to his racing hobby, and in fact yanked a bunch of Toyota Corona parts for me a while back.
Vendler shot a couple of rolls of Ilford HP5 120 film in the Sears Tower Pinhole at the LKQ Pick Your Part in the Sun Valley neighborhood of Los Angeles, during the huge January rainstorms that caused such destruction in the region.
He also brought his preferred film camera rig: a SPRKPLG LigeroLG 3D-printed body equipped with a Mamiya Press lens and Lomography LomoGraflok Instant Back, shooting Fujichrome Instax Polaroid-style instant film. Those shots are included in the gallery, after the Sears Tower Pinhole shots.
