Pinhole Photography
A pinhole camera, also known as camera obscura, or "dark chamber", is a simple camera in the shape of a closed box or chamber. In one of its sides is a small hole which, via the rectilinear propagation of light, creates an image of the outside space on the opposite side of the box. Because of the simple technique, it means that you can make a pinhole camera out of almost any inanimate object. Here are some of the most weirdly constructed cameras I could find...
Want to make your own? Heres how... You can apply this method to most hollow objects...
Steven Pippins:
Steven Pippens is an English photographer/ sculpture.
Camera Obscura.
Camera = Latin for “room”/"chamber"
Obscura = Latin for “dark”
A camera Obscura is literally means dark chamber. Its google definition is "A darkened box with a convex lens or aperture for projecting the image of an external object on to a screen inside, a forerunner of the modern camera". Which sums it up perfectly. You can make a camera obscure in your room if you have black bin bags, some scotch tape and a window... Camera Obscurers have been dated back to ancient Greece when, during a partial eclipse of the sun, he noticed how through a hole in the wall, an image is produced on the wall opposite. This technique was used by world class renaissance painters to paint landscapes using pitch black mobile tents with a small hole inserted into it so the image would be presented onto the artist's canvas, allowing them to trace it. take a look at this video where national geography demonstrate how to make a camera obscurer...
photographs made from my own pinhole camera.
Pinhole photography- Trees.
Above are the positives and negatives of my own pinhole photography, made using a sex pistols "never mind the bollocks" tobacco tin of mine. (I followed the steps of the video at the top of the page to create it).
Evaluation...
Above is the negative, and digitally flipped positive version of the same photograph, and the first of the set I took. You need to scan and flip the original image after it has been developed as the black and whites are inverted and the photograph is as if it is been turned over, so you must to make it correct in comparison with the thing you have photographed. Because his was the first pinhole photographs I had ever taken, I didn't take to much time thinking about composition as I wanted to understand the technique and to master it in the simplest way as soon as possible so i could take them, and develop them indipendantly. With this image, it was difficult to judge whether it was over, or under exposed. This is because the middle of the photograph is over exposed, and the outside is over exposed. I came to the conclusion that I had made the fence a fraction of a millimetre too small and had kept the shutter open for too long. So, I re made my "lens" and went to take my second photograph, the outcome was interesting.
Believe it or not, this image is of a building in my school. You are unable to see the building properly because I had left the shutter open for too long and thus over exposed the image meaning that I had allowed too much light into the lens and onto the paper in the back of the tin. As a result, everything turns overly white to the point where you cannot see the subject of the image, as in this case. Sometimes this can be interaction as it allows the viewer to have a sense of mystery and sometimes it just generally adds something to the image making it more interesting. And i think this is relevant here. Although the negative is, in my opinion, too over powering, the positive, flipped version is quite nice. The only thing that you can make out is the top part of the building. And more specifically, the top window along with the panel looking object above it. Everything else is either very blurred or too dim to properly make out.
Eventually, I got the technique down well enough to be able to make out a clear image. It took me about 3 attempts to create an image that is distinguishable. The three above are the best of my first session. To see how my technique developed with pinhole photography has developed since, take a look at my Year 11 mock on the natural world...