It’s not my cup of tea, and maybe it’s not yours either, but seeing as this coming Sunday, April 29, is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day I thought I’d give it a mention.
Pinhole photography is the simplest form of the art, and has been with us since the beginning. The cameras can range from remarkably simple homemade contraptions put together from virtually any object that can be made light tight, to lens attachments made for the latest technological marvels coming from the digital camera manufacturers. All share one thing in common — the exposure is made through a pinhole, and the results can be unpredictable. Some are sublimely beautiful, some are not. Some have a dreamy, boozy quality to them. Some don’t work at all… just like any other form of photography.
Take a moment to check out the site for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. It’s a good reminder to all of us that our chosen medium is a rich and diverse one. A good reminder that there are many approaches, many styles, many means of expression inherent in photography. Maybe most importantly, it’s a reminder that photography isn’t about having the latest and greatest camera. It’s about what you do with what you choose to use.
cannery wall -- newport, oregon
Now and then you reach one of those plateaus in your photography, and in your life, where you need to stop, drill down inside yourself, and regain your sense of direction. The things you are doing seem trivial and meaningless… your purpose and intention seem to have evaporated… you feel like you’re on a hamster wheel, running as fast as you can but at the end of the day you’re still in the same spot you were when you started… you feel like you’re running in place, creatively, mentally, and spiritually. I feel a bit that way these days.
It happens, and I’m not really all that concerned about it. My world has been rocked by some major changes over the past couple of years — losing a job, moving to LA, living on the edge of disaster and being suddenly pulled back from the brink — my subconscious is probably just filtering all that, chewing on it, and working on making some sense of it all. My camera, my digital one, has felt like a foreign object in my hand. My patience with all the bells and whistles they build in to these things these days, with all the options and information they contain, is wearing thin. It’s disconcerting to work with a camera that’s smarter than I am. I can only recall taking one image with it in the last several months.
I’ve felt a strong urge to return to shooting with film again, mostly with the simple little Agfa Silette I’ve been mentioning, and that’s what I’m doing. I have an old Nikkormat too which I’ll probably play with occasionally, but mostly my instrument of choice is the Silette… fixed lens, no built in meter, no batteries, no frills. The beauty of simplicity. No doubt also a cranky reaction to a computerized digitized hurry-up world, and a small attempt to unplug a little bit from that world. Besides… I like the feeling of loading a roll of film, working out an exposure, clicking the shutter and advancing the frame, anticipating what I may have gotten on that tiny little rectangle of film, and handling and viewing a strip of negatives. It feels like photography again.
I made a trip to bring my daughter back here to LA a couple of summers ago. Some of you may recall that. On our way we spent part of a day in the small fishing town of Newport, Oregon and I had posted a few of my digital photos from there. I also shot a roll of C-41 black and white film with the Silette on that trip and had loaded them into my computer to look at later. That was the last I’d seen of them until the other day. I’m the kind who will forget to tie my shoes if I don’t leave myself a note, and I couldn’t remember where I had filed them. Turns out I had inadvertently misfiled them into a folder I never look at. I happened to open it the other day to see what it was, and lo and behold there were my Oregon and California negs. Surprise, surprise.
So, without further ado, here’s the first photo from that day in Newport, Oregon in July of 2010 taken with my Agfa Silette 1. The film was Kodak BW400CN, the exposure unknown, determined by the ‘Sunny-16′ method. I’m pleased with it.
