August 6, 2002

9:28 PM

For the past year or so pinhole photography has been an important part of my artistic practice. These are some of the sites that have inspired me: pinhole visions is a great all round pinholing resource, and also hosts the Pinhole discussion mailing list. The discussion list was one of the launching points for the 2nd annual world pinhole day, this past April 28th; check out the image gallery. Artist sites worth checking out include this page on Dianne Bos, Martha Casanave's incredible work (both pinhole and not), pinhole.nl (Dude! Meat cathedral), The Oehl's fantastic self-portraits, and polaroidsandpinholes.com. Finally, if you're heading out to Burning Man this year, you could check out Camp Pinhole where each year they "build, operate, and burn a van-sized walk-in pinhole camera/darkroom" (cool!). (First post. Be nice)
posted by slipperywhenwet (11 comments total)

When researching my first digital camera, I used to frequent digital preview's forums. Every few months, when the new models come out, there were always a few that want to wait for next year's model. They wanted audio and video and x.x million pixels with the curved doohickey instead of the straight one. Technology = better pictures don'tcha know. They put off learning photography all together--won't even bust out their old Pentax K1000 to play around with--until the next Nikon/Canon/whatever was released.

Then I visit pinhole photography sites. No whining about what's wrong with the equipment--just raw creativity using the basest of materials.

This is the stuff. Nice first post slip; I enjoyed it.
posted by Tacodog at 11:10 PM on August 6, 2002

Nice post, slipperywhenwet. I especially enjoyed Casanave's Leningrad in Winter. There's something about blurred black-and-white photos that really gets to me. When the camera's mechanics (focus, in this case) intrudes on the image, it becomes more real for me--a false sense of authenticity, perhaps, but it gets to me nonetheless.

A photographer who works on a completely different scale (and in completely different emotional tones) that I've been enamored with of late is Andreas Gursky. The reproduced images of his work on the MOMA site fail to do the original prints justice, even larger reproductions in books fail. Notice the dimensions of "99 Cent": 6' 9 1/2" x 11'.
posted by josephtate at 12:34 AM on August 7, 2002

beautiful.
thank you.
posted by elle at 12:49 AM on August 7, 2002

Heres something for me to do with my week off, cool link.
posted by monkeyJuice at 1:41 AM on August 7, 2002

Super! Thanks, slipperywhenwet!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:08 AM on August 7, 2002

Nice post. Every once in a while over on pixelpile, there are some pinhole photos posted. You ought to check it out.
posted by Hall at 4:12 AM on August 7, 2002

Fantastic post. I'm conteplating converting an old brownie into a pinhole camera, and appricate the resources above. People who find pinhole cameras interesting might also enjoy the work of emil schildt, who spurns modern post exposure photographic processes for a distinctivly low fi approach. On one particularly striking photograph he describes the tecnique as follows:

ruined negative..sandpaper... Painted with light.. Liquid emulsion on heavy paper..Manipulated with toning - coffee and cigarette ashes...
posted by astirling at 6:38 AM on August 7, 2002

great link, i'll spend hours mulling through these. i think im going to dig out my old pinhole camera from high school now and start shooting again. thanks!
posted by sixtwenty3dc at 9:26 AM on August 7, 2002

Also of note is Creating Pride's Pinhole Van project. They've turned a small truck into a pinhole camera to teach kids about the photographic process and inspire them to make art. It's travelling around Chicago this summer.
posted by me3dia at 9:37 AM on August 7, 2002

I've used a Diana camera (a plastic toy camera) to make some nice images. Lots of light leaks make for some nice accidents. I've also used a Pentax 6x7 to make photographs (medium format: looks like a huge 35 mm SLR).

Just bought my first digital camera (Nikon 5700). My darkroom has been laying fallow for about 4 years. I'm looking forward to getting back to picture making.
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 11:14 AM on August 7, 2002

While we're at pinhole links, here's Pinhole Spy Camera.
posted by hobbes at 2:45 AM on August 8, 2002