World Pinhole Photography Day
exhibition
Wendy Leocque
This suitcase belonged to my grandmother, who arrived in the UK in 1956 from the Caribbean. After a nearly 3-week journey by ship, my grandmother arrived alone in the UK holding this very suitcase to start her new life. She was part of a wave of migration known as the Windrush generation. I had wanted to use this suitcase for a project for a long time, when I finally decided that I would turn it into a pinhole camera and take images of significant objects and places that I associate with my grandmother and with Windrush. The image I have chosen to submit is of my mother’s suitcase, who was reunited with my grandmother (her mother) 4 years later in 1960. This image forms part of an ongoing series of images that is a personal Windrush project.
Adnan
Rusdi
Pinhole camera from stone. This camera was handmade with the help of stone craftsmen from Muntilan City. This City is located in Magelang Regency Central Java, Indonesia which has many cultural heritage sites of the ancient Mataram kingdom. Such as the largest Buddhist temple in the world, Borobudur Temple. And then there is Gunung Wukir Temple, the oldest temple in Central Java-Yogyakarta which can be connected with the number of years based on the Canggal Inscription (732AD). With many heritage sites and temples, there is an ancestral heritage that is still visible today, such as residents who are experts in making statues, crafts and carvings from stone.
David Camilo Gutierrez Almonacid
The MÁRTIRES project revolves around the creation of a series of photographic cameras using recycled materials and objectsfound in recycling collection pointsin the town of Los Mártires in the city of Bogotá, Colombia. The project aimsto generate symbolic relationships between the materials used to build the cameras and the different places and people to be photographed in the same locality. In this way towards portraying what is not usually portrayed, forgotten people and places, such as the street dwellers and the community of informal recyclers who live inside the sector, in order to break the common forms as they are usually record these types of spaces and the communities found in them.
Gabrielle Chisholm
My camera was inspired by James Guerin @realitysosubtle, but mine is very rudimentary and developed for a diploma course I’m currently doing. I created a box 8” x 10” with a lid to fit my photographic paper and the lid has 25 pinholes and between the pinholes and the paper, I created grids which, along with the inside of the box, has been painted with black acrylic paint. The pinholes were made from aluminium soda cans and a sewing needle and sandpapered to try and fix any flare. My image is a self-portrait that was taken in a studio with 2 strobes set on the strongest setting and firing up to 60 times. It’s a lesson in trying to stay very, very still.
Kris
Sebring
This camera is part of a series of alien cameras. Each camera is designed to capture the alien’s point of view perspective as it explores its new world. This alien camera uses 35mm roll film and has 2 pinholes which can expose the front and back of the film simultaneously, or separately, to capture redscale or double exposures. The camera itself is made primarily from wood. And is embellished with shag fur and airbrush details. The shutters are an eyeball and butt-piece that stay in place with magnets.
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Paulina
Vicino
This series of pinhole cameras was created to portray four generations of women. My grandmother, my mother, my daughters and myself. My grandmother's portrait was made with the largest Mamushka using RC paper as a negative. The pinhole was made on a metal plate.
Stacy
Iannaccone
The idea for the Mr.Potato Head Pinhole camera came about after hearing someone say a photo they saw looked like it was “shot on a potato.” I thought to myself, why not make a camera out of an actual potato? So the first attempt at the potato camera was made.
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I took a large russet potato and split it in two, scooping out the center to create a hollowed-out cavity for the camera body. I then painted the inside black to make it light-tight and cut a hole in one side for the pinhole. Unfortunately, the image did not come out. I tried a few more shots before throwing in the towel and setting it aside until I figured out how to make it work. Later that week, I caught a glimpse of a Mr.Potato Head doll on a store shelf.
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Amber
Jesson
My work explores the physical processes of how analogue film can be manipulated by designing and making my own peculiar pinhole cameras; an elementary device which sees and seizes without complex mechanics. I am absolutely fascinated by the process of how a simple entity can yield such a complex reflection of an unquestionable truth.
Playing on the idea of the covert encouraged me to design and make a pinhole camera ring, which takes photographs no bigger than the size of a fingernail. Made from copper the camera sits undetected on my hand, eliminating the typical reaction that occurs when someone observes they are being photographed.
Gaspard
Comte
I took this picture with my handmade 3D printed camera. I modeled it on Solidworks in 3D and then printed and assembled it.
To have a good quality picture I bought a circular disc which had a hole of precisely 0.37 mm. Then I created this pinhole camara so that it could receive this disc.
Then I took two "selfies" on Ilford RC paper. The first one by placing a mask on the paper and then a second one by placing another mask.
After developing the photo, I scanned it and reversed it.
Hannah Fletcher
Alice Cazenave
Hannah Fletcher and Alice Cazenave have been working collaboratively while in residence at Örö, a remote island and part of the Archipelago National Park, Finland. Here, they have been researching ways to make photographs with the limited resources the remote island has to offer. As part of the work, they made a series of miniature pinhole cameras using spare black 35mm film canisters. Small in size, they can be quickly removed from pockets and exposed for just a few seconds, documenting the island’s landscapes.
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Once exposed, the cameras were reloaded with new positive paper in a film changing bag. This was done with care whilst exploring the island, attending to the very real risk of visits from adders and vipers that emerge from hibernation in the Spring. In a cupboard-come-darkroom, exposed papers were developed in home made plant-based developer, using either kitchen food waste or plant matter fallen to the forest floor.
Heather
Palecek
This camera was created in honor of Paolo Gioli who passed away this year. I made it out of black foam core board with three crackers as the apertures. Altogether there are 24 holes that create overlapping images on the negative. This camera takes one sheet of 4x6 photo paper as the film.
Jay Stonefield
The photo was taken as a part of a series about how time is fleeting and I’m constantly worried about how I spend my time, to the point where I spend the time worrying more than actually doing anything. The photo was taken using a pinhole camera made from a box and ilford rc pearl paper. It was attached to the ceiling and exposed for 9 hours throughout the night. I wanted to capture me sleeping; what I look like when I cannot be aware of my body and appearance. Other pinhole cameras made of cans were also set up around my room to capture different angles, but I liked the top down view the most
Justin Quinnell
Had to be done! Pinhole camera made from a covid testing box. Colour negative film. Made whilst being the first face to face lecturer for over a year at Falmouth University.
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Lizzie Sweetie
In my life, I experience dream-like vignettes. These alternate realities show themselves to me as I’m going about my day. I appear as the main subject in these fantasies. Each image is a different dream. These photos therefore speak on my concept of self and how I interact with the world. I often experience dissociation which takes me to a far away place, disconnected from myself and surroundings.
I am using a camera completely hand-stitched out of felt and satin to transport the viewer into a dream world. I wanted to create the softest photos I could so I made a camera that is completely soft. Every element to this camera is made out of fabric, there is no metal or plastic. In past work I created soft sculptures which made me familiar with felt. I am drawn to felt specifically because of its delicateness and its fuzzy texture. I chose satin around the knob to cut down on friction when advancing.
Maddison Stapleton
I have always loved both LEGO and photography. In 2011, while pursuing my bachelor in art, I built several functioning pinhole cameras out of LEGO elements for my final senior project. For this specific version I attempted to build a LEGO model that was both a visual reference to traditional SLRs and also used 35mm color film. The film was then developed, digitally scanned, edited, and then printed on a large format printer for our final showcase. As can be seen, the results were wildly unpredictable, with scanner artifacts, double exposures, and light leaks. My professors hated it lol.
Anthony
Carr
This project was inspired by Eric Renner; pinhole photographer, author and founder of Worldwide Pinhole Day, who suddenly passed away in 2020. In his seminal pinhole book, he describes how the humble red pepper can be converted into a simple camera, so I thought I’d give it a go. Renner’s passing coincided with the start of the pandemic and I had just started growing windowsill peppers in an attempt at being more self-reliant. This was then the perfect opportunity to document the pepper plant growth with a homemade pepper camera.
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Natalie
Atwell
This pinhole camera was made specifically with my current project ‘Almanac’ in mind, and is
the first I made out of a trio. The other two are from a toby jug and a teapot shaped like a
chicken. This one was built using an earthenware biscuit dish shaped like a cottage. I spent a
couple of hours drilling through the pottery with a dremel, but recently discovered that this
could have been completed in a couple of minutes with a pillar drill! Making these pinholes
has shown me the joy and curiosity of hand-making, and seeing photographs come to life in
front of you. Now as well as being important to the project, the process and ritual of making
pinholes has become important to me.
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Stig Marlon Weston
While staying at an artist residency on an island nrth of the Arctic Circle in Norway this winter I photographed a lot with some new pinhole cameras I made while I was there. Using simple metal lunchboxes I poked several pinholes in the camerabox so I get several overlapping exposures on the same piece of film in the camera. This way I can make panoramas where the subject gets stiched together in an analog way as I am photographing the landscape in several directions at once.
Yohanes Widoyoko
With a fairly short time and spontaneously I tried to make from an enamel cup with a circle diameter of 12cm, then punched holes with a drill and closed with small pieces of beer cans that had been made pinholes. Also spray the inside with a matt black color.
The inside of the cup is made of insulation so that the photo paper is not too concave. I cut an expired 8x10 ilford satin multigrade photo paper into a 4x5 size to fit in a cup. Then I put the photo paper into the cup which was carried out in a dark room and took pictures the object is plastic camera with a duration of 15 minutes (because the weather was cloudy).
Zoe
Connell
Here is my camera ‘the bird box’ which I made for my final project at university, I graduate in July so to prepare myself for stepping out into the photographic industry I used 12mm ply wood to make a 10x8 camera and shoot straight onto paper, so that I can use it anywhere after I graduate. I have also used ilford multi chrome filters to make my shots colourful, and I have a detachable ‘dark slide’ to transport my paper negatives which I have contact printed here to get this final shot.
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Divya
Sahasrabuddhe
The 2020 lockdown in India came so suddenly and swiftly, I found myself stuck at home with no work and a lot of free time. It became the best time to work on the various projects that had been brewing in my brain for months, even years, before that. One of them was to build a pinhole camera. Not just any pinhole, but an instant one. However, none of the material or equipment I had intended on using were accessible at the time, and so it turned more into an arts and crafts activity than an exercise in photography.
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Having previously repurposed an old shoebox to build a film “scanner”, I turned once again to a trusty collection of cardboard boxes to which I had inexplicably, but serendipitously, held on. Using nothing but a blade, black paint and electric tape, an elastic band, and some reinforced-to-be-light-proof denim, I got to work.
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Jolie
Wong
This pinhole camera (which I named Cameron) is the first pinhole camera I ever made, and I used it for a school project about 3 months ago exploring time slowed down. I took pictures with it at the train station hoping to capture the movement of people in a ghostly way, and reflect on how the role of travel and public transport in our lives has changed in a post-lockdown world. One improvement I would make in my process if I did this again is to use a tripod!!
Surajit Mudi
My practice revolves around alternative photography and this process I have chosen for my artistic expression has a scientific background, requiring logical set ups to be executed. This pinhole camera was made long before my shift to large format, when I initially ventured into the alternative image making process where I perceive the camera as a negative producer.
While developing this pinhole camera, which also happens to be my second pinhole camera I constantly debated and thought about possibilities through which I could see the image in the pinhole camera and focus upon the subject beforehand
Sofia Rennison
This pinhole camera is made from a globe, and represents that everything that happens makes an impact which will never be forgotten. This impact always remains somewhere in the world, no matter how small, or it can simply remain deep inside it, very deep, where no one will be able to see it.
