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'Krappy Kameras' shoot fine prints

15 March 2003

By MITCHELL SEIDEL
STAR-LEDGER STAFF

REVIEW
Fifth Annual Krappy Kamera Competition
What: Photographs made with toy or homemade pinhole cameras
Where: Soho Photo Gallery, 15 White St., Manhattan
When: Through March 29. 6-8 p.m. Thursdays, 1-6 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and by appointment
How much: Free. Call (212) 226-8571 or visit www.sohophoto.com.

Many photographs on display this month at Soho Photo Gallery are strangely exposed, not in sharp focus and generally lacking in technical ability. They are, in a word, "Krappy."

That is the point to the cooperative gallery's fifth annual Krappy Kamera juried contest, where technical skill takes a back seat to raw aesthetics. The images - all produced by toy or pinhole cameras - make focus, exposure and lens quality a "krap" shoot. The idea is to challenge photographers to create original images without the luxury of fine optics.

Even with all the technical handicaps, Bob Gervais managed to capture a remarkably sharp black- and-white multiple exposure in "Grand Central Outside/Inside," in which the activity of the main passenger concourse melds with a twilight view of the station's facade. Inclusion of black negative borders, usually an affectation, actually helps to frame the layered imagery created with a plastic-bodied medium format Holga camera.

Mark Dungan's photogravure representation of "Eiffel Tower, Paris Texas," with its dark areas, uncertain focus and vertical scratches, recalls early experiments in photography. In a bit of whimsy, the model of the famous tower wears a hat, à la Maurice Chevalier.

Similarly, Tim Timmermans' "Crypt," a giclee print from a Holga negative, recalls early photography with its vignetted edges and albumen print-like tones. The title subject, an ornate gazebo-like structure in the center of the print, retains sharp focus while standing out against a hazy background.

Gisa Indenbaum turns three children into six with her "New York Dreams," another Holga-crafted work. The children are seen in multiple exposure running through sheets on a clothesline. One of them, a boy wearing an old-fashioned cap, makes it seem as if they are ghosts from the 1920s having a romp in the yard.

Susan Bowen's "Reflection to Go" uses the Holga's multiple exposure capability to create a panoramic-like strip of overlapping images of buildings reflecting on a Volkswagen Beetle. The curvature of the reflections allows the images to flow almost seamlessly into each other while the formal geometry of the building's windows bends from one end of the print to the other.

The competition is augmented by a members' exhibition of their own "Krappy" camera photographs, just as appealing as those in the juried show. There is strong use of color film, to the point that it is difficult to determine if the cameras used really were all that shoddy. A particular favorite is a display of black and white paper negatives alongside snapshots of the photographer with the devices that created them: pinhole cameras fashioned from food tins.

NOTES: CABLE CONNECTIONS(Jerry Krupnick appears regularly in The Star-Ledger.)

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