Eaton Family Solarcan Project - Phase 3: Jack and Harper

As covered in previous posts, late last year I discovered a product called the Solarcan, a pinhole camera created using an aluminum can with a small hole in the side and photographic paper inside, all to capture long-period exposures (weeks, months, years) of the Sun as it moves across the sky each day, images called solargraphs. I bought a five-pack of Solarcans in December and gave four to my grandkids as Christmas gifts . 

In the Phase 2 posts, I covered helping my grandkids set up their Solarcans. The plan for each one was to have them up about 6 months. For the ones Jack, Harper and I put up (see this post), the 6 months was up on July 17th. Here are views of the their Solarcans as we prepared to take them down on July 29th:

Jack's Solarcan

Harper's Solarcan

One of the things we noticed is that each of their Solarcan's were just a little bit crooked; they were straight when we put them out. More about this below. 

Following the Solarcan instructions for developing solargraphs, we scanned each image. 

Scan of Jack's solargraph

Scan of Harper's solargraph

The initial scans look a little odd... the sky and the arcs traced by the Sun are dark and the foreground is light. The reason is that the photographic paper reacts to light by darkening, resulting in a negative image. The bright spot on the sides of each image are the result of tabs on the inside of the Solarcan that hold the paper in place; because they overlap the paper, they block the light, preventing the paper from darkening. 

The next step in the development process is to convert each image from negative to positive. After that, the goal processing is getting an image in which some of the details come out (e.g., adjusting exposure and contrast) and adjusting color and other variables to get something that looks interesting. Here is the final result. 

Jack's finished solargraph

Harper's finished solargraph

As covered in the Phase 2 post, Jack's Solarcan was mounted in their back yard with the shop and chicken coop in the foreground while Harper's was mounted in their front yard with a view of the house in the foreground (though the chicken coop was visible over the fence). If you look closely, you can see all those details in these images. 

As with other solargraphs (including Olivia's), the lines traced across the top of the image represent the path of the Sun each day. These solargraphs were started about a month after the winter solstice so the earliest lines are the lower ones, reflecting the low path across the sky of a winter Sun. As time passed, new lines appear higher and higher on the image. Gaps appear where there were days (or parts of days) in which the Sun was obscured by clouds. One reason there are differences in these two solargraphs (even though they were mounted relatively close together) has to do with another thing that blocked the sunlight: tree limbs. You can see the trees more prominently in Harper's solargraph. You can see in the first images above that there are trees closer to where it was mounted compared to Jack's.  

The other unusual aspect of these images is the strange "double-exposure" appearance, most obvious on the right side of Jack's image where there is a second, lighter horizon above the darker horizon below and the lighter one is at an angle. As mentioned above, we installed each Solarcan vertically on a post but when we took them down, each was just a little crooked. 

We aren't sure what happened but it seems clear that about 4 months (roughly 2/3rd of the way through the exposure) something knocked each can over a little. When that happened, effectively a "new exposure" was started. It's hard to tell but the effect even shows up in the lines traced by the Sun (the highest ones are a bit blurred where ones traced after the cans were knocked over overlap the earlier lines). 

Although our initial reaction was that this was an error, that the solargraphs were "messed up", the more we talked about it, the more unique it seemed. Jack, Harper and I now consider these to be extra special, very unique!

As always, click on an image to see full screen.  

Eaton Family Solarcan Project - Phase 2: Jack and Harper

As covered in the Phase 1 post, I've started playing around with a product called the Solarcan, a pinhole camera created using an aluminum can with a small hole in the side and photographic paper inside, all to capture long-period exposures (weeks, months, years) of the Sun as it moves across the sky each day, images called solargraphs. 

I bought a five-pack in December and used one to shoot a sample shot to share with my grandkids; see previous post. I gave the other four to them as Christmas gifts. 

Earlier this month, we went to see son Chris, his wife Katie and our grandkids Jack and Harper. They have about an acre out in the country. They also have chickens and an Australian shepherd. Not quite a farm but still a very rural setting. I figured this could make for some interesting solargraph images. 

First, Jack and I talked about where a good spot would be for his Solarcan. They have a power pole on the northern edge of their property so we selected as the place to install his camera. 

From this spot, there is a full view of their backyard. The resulting solargraph should have bright lines arcing across from left to right over the shop and chicken coop. Movement of earthbound things generally won't be captured in the image so the solargraph will probably not include people, the dog or chickens.  

Pin marks the spot for Jack's Solarcan. It's oriented towards noon-time solar position. 

The view from Jack's camera. The chicken coop is next to the shop in center of image. 

When it came time to set up Harper's Solarcan, she wanted to have a view of their front yard so we picked a fence post out front. As we were setting it up, she realized she really wanted to have the chicken coop in the view. By mounting the camera a bit higher on the post, the coop is just visible over the fence so she was happy with that. 

Pin marks the spot for Harper's Solarcan, also oriented towards the noon-time solar position.

The view from Harper's camera. Note the tree branches. The chicken coop is just over the fence.

For Harper's Solarcan, one thing that will be interesting is that as the sun traces tracks across the image from lower left, up across the center and then down to the lower right, it will pass behind branches of the trees along the fence line on either side. 

In most solargraphs, the lines traced by the sun have occassional gaps caused by periods of cloudiness. For Harper's, there will also be gaps from the branches obsuring the sun. With the wind blowing them and the trees growing, the gaps may change from day to day, week to week. 

The differences between Jack's and Harper's solargraph images, both in terms of the overall scenes and with the view being mostly clear in Jack's but with Harper's having branches in the view, should make seeing each of these side by side when done very interesting. 

Now that they are up, the plan is to leave them up about 6 months. We didn't get them up until a month after the winter solstice so the lower tracks left by the sun won't be as low as they could have been but each day between now and mid-summer the tracks will go higher up the image. 

I'll post the results later this year so stay tuned...