Solargraph Fail

I put a lump of coal in my own stocking. When I opened a solargraph can that I had mounted with high expectations I discovered the photographic paper inside had curled. Apparently my interior tape job on the corners during assembly six months prior was insufficient. Lesson learned: do not skimp on the electrical tape just to lessen its appearance on the final product. Better to have tape in the corners than to have no useful image.

Image of solargraph's black and white photographic paper directly out of the can.

After flipping the original sepia image horizontally to match the scene, I color adjusted to bring out some definition of the tree(s) in the foreground. The resulting image was disappointing, for it had overlapping solar arcs. One set of arcs was from the first few months of exposure, and a second set of arcs defined the months after the paper curled and presented a new angle to the sun.

Notice how the tape in the upper left corner remained in place, causing it to block all light and appear as a dark bandage in the corner. Tape on the other corner apparently gave way and the paper curled in from there.

One upside is that the curled paper did not fully block the pinhole, so the unobscured aperture allowed at least some image to appear. However the curl distorted the paper sufficiently to ruin the image.

I awaited this particular solargraph because I'm trying to improve on the image with each curved solar arc meeting a seemingly curved sundial gnomon at a perpendicular angle. I succeeded once, and was hoping to "reproduce the experiment results."

After removing the 2024 can, I replaced it with a new one depicting a curling enthusiast's graphic: "Bonspiel Noir" from Stormcloud Brewing Company in Frankfort, MI. Hopefully, I used enough tape since I built and mounted it before seeing the shortcomings of its predecessor. We'll know in late June 2025.