The pencil of nature: Pinhole Photography
By Guido Tamino
26 Nov 2008
Pinhole photography consists in taking pictures only using the light which passes through a small hole. No lenses, no shutter, it is all about the basic principle of optics which states that if you make an hole in a box, you will see an inverted (upside down) picture of the outside world on the other side.
Here we go. If you put some sensitive material (like photographic paper) where the reflected light falls, you will have a picture. As you may imagine the light which passes through a small hole is not enough for impressing the film in the same time we are used to (like 1/100 sec). The "shutter" is usually made of some black cardboard which covers the hole. The correct exposure time is calculated on an algorithm which considers the diaphram (expressed by the relation between the hole's size and the focal length) and the sensibility of the paper. In the daylight the correct exposure would be probably between two seconds and several minutes depending on the factors explained above
Usually people starts painting with black the inner part of a box (or a can — which give curious results due to its convessity) and making a small hole in it (using a nail or a needle which could be more accurate). Afterwards they put some b/w photographic paper, open the shutter for one minute or so and develop the picture in their darkroom.
That was pretty hard for me because I didn' t have any access to a darkroom. The best thing for me was to work with common photographic film. Using photographic 35mm film I was allowed to: take the picture using a shorter time, have color pictures instead of b/w, take more than one picture in a single session (using the b/w paper you have to change it and develop it every single shot, with photographic film you could take more that twenty picture before developing — which is pretty useful when you have to experiment exposure time and all) and at least, I can develop the film directly in the cheapest filmshop of my city (no darkroom required).
Of course, for making all this possible, you have to find a way to wind and rewind the film. This and other technical issues are completely up to you, it's funny, educative and doesn't cost nothing. For the winding knob I found my way using one of this glue-tubes with the twisting system and some adesive tape.
The aim of this brief article on pinhole photography is to show how easy is the whole thing. If you want to take a deeper look in the technical side of the thing, internet is plenty of resources about it.
Playing with the basics of photography will be an interesting experience and you will become conscious of the basics behind your camera. You will achieve more confidence with the nature of light and develop a stronger photographic consciousness. I'm only an amateur and I've just started to get into this photographic world, but I've seen some great pinhole photographers in action and it seemed they own the whole photographic process.
There are a lot of thing to experiment with: you may decide to put the sensitive film on a convess area (let's say putting it inside a can) and notice the conseguences and the interesting distorsions. Another cool thing is that pinhole photography is not affected by focal depth. Everything is on focus from 10 mm to infinte, but you could decide to put a magnifying glass in front of the hole and wait to see what happens. It's totally up to you.
On my side, nothing is more exciting than getting your film developed and finding out that the pictures on the negative are totally yours. No one else has been involved in the process — ok, probably the developer man at the photoshop (if you could do it by yourself it would be the best). The pictures are written directly by the light thanks to your effort (like they did almost one hundred and seventy years ago).
3 responses
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profanArte said (26 Nov 2008):
Cool!
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John Caruso gave props (26 Nov 2008):
Nicely done! Thanks for this informative article.
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Steve Merrill said (24 Dec 2008):
Wow, yours shoots 35mm ? Interesting....
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