Pinhole Photography Research 02/10/10

Pinhole Research and examples of Professional photographers work.

After attempting our own pinhole photography I researched other photographers to get a wider view of new ideas of  stretching the boundaries of this type of photography and how some artists have embraced the different varieties of their art.

I did not do this before I started my own (shown in my other post) because then I didn't have any idea of the professional standard, so in turn I didn't see my pictures as awful, set them alight and cry.

I first looked at the artist Justin Quinnell for his pinhole photos. We were shown examples of his work in our group and I wanted to know how he produced them. One of his projects was to put cameras at key scenery around Bristol and he left them for six months. The images when they were completed where very unique because you could see the suns height in the sky changing each day as the months went on.

Click the Link to see Justin Quinnells 'Slow Light' Project

He also has a wide range of photos and a main theme he constantly repeats to great effect is obscuring images to make them seem unreal and quite funny. A prime example is one from his 'colour gallery' where a toy appears to be drowning in his serial. Another of his projects was 'mouthpiece' where he put a camera inside his mouth to take pictures. Very unique again and sometimes quite disturbing but I will let you judge for yourself.

Justin Quinnells Full Collection (You need to click the small dot, a pin-hole if you will.)

Just for some fun (I lead a dismal life) I wanted to know the largest and most bizarre pinhole camera ever made. I expected it to be strange, but not aeroplane hangar strange. The guinness world record for largest successful pinhole camera goes to an aeroplane hangar.

The image below is the finished picture.

Picture from TwistedSun.net

To make this a reality they complete blacked out the hanger which took months and the 'photo paper' was fabric 11 stories wide and 3 high was fabric soaked in the chemicals needed for development. The same process was carried out too with a pinhole in the opposite wall and left open for 3 days.

The whole process of pinhole photography is very simple but has pioneered the way into the future for digital cameras and a great deal of what we see today.