Pinhole Photography

A camera has a few simple components:

Black Box
Lens
Aperture: light enters through
Shutter
Controlling how long light enters
Recording Medium
Light sensitive film / paper
A pinhole camera is the direct descendant of the
camera obscura.

The camera obscura used to be a large room or box

that artists would point at different scenes to enlarge
and then trace.
 When light enters a small pinhole in the side
of a large box or room, it produces an
inverted image on the opposite wall.
 When light enters a small pinhole in the side
of a large box or room, it produces an
inverted image on the opposite wall.
Whats happening is... There is a pinhole on one
wall, and this hole lets in just enough light and it
projects the outside onto the opposite wall.
 By the seventeenth century (1830s) the
process was made portable by fitting a lens
to one end of a box and using a sheet of
glass at the opposite end to view the image.

A mirror inserted inside at a 45-degree

angle would reverse the image, giving the
viewer a corrected orientation.
Sir David Brewster,
a Scottish scientist,
coined the word
"pinholeand was
one of the first to
make pinhole
photographs in the
1850s.
Instead of a lens,
the camera has a
small hole that lets
in light.

The image is not as

sharp it would be if
made using a lens.

*Soft and fuzzy...

A pinhole camera
has nearly infinite
depth of field.

Meaning, everything
in the photo is in
focus.
How to...
Round
Straight surfaces may look curved
if the film plane is curved.
Square
Working with Paper Negatives
Negatives // Positives
Whats happening, chemically?
When you take a picture, youre
capturing light as it pours in.
Where there is a LOT OF LIGHT,
the photographic paper looks almost
burnt by the sun.
Where there are shadows, the paper
is left alone and looks white.
This will make sense someday!
We will use negatives to
shine light through
And youll see then why we
like the negatives!

For now, we will simply

scan our images and invert
them in Photoshop.
Steps...
1. Find a pinhole camera;
2. In a darkroom, put in your photo paper;
3. IMPORTANT: Make sure your shutter is
closed!
4. Go out and take a picture, calculating exposure
for your lighting conditions;
5. Return to the darkroom with your pinhole
camera still closed;
6. In a darkroom, remove your lid and put your
picture in the developer, stop, fixer, rinse.
7. Take notes on your exposure time / success;
8. Repeat!
Experimentation

This image was made from a camera with six

pinholes.
Experimentation

A nineteen hole camera.

Experimentation
Any deviation
from round will
affect the
sharpness and
the perspective of
the image.

An oval or
horizontal slit will
smear the image
toward the edges
in the direction of
the longest
dimension.
Experimentation

A horizontal front slit,

with a vertical back slit will
cause an elongation
squeezing things in toward
the middle.
 Sources

http://www.nh.ultranet.com/
~stewoody/photo.htm

http://neon.airtime.co.uk/pinhole/

http://www.pinholeresource.com
/gallery1.html

Renner, Eric. 2000. Pinhole

Photography: Rediscovering a Historic
Technique. Focal Press, Boston.

Upton, Barbara and Upton, John. 1981.

Photography. Little, Brown and Co.,
Boston.
History of the Pinhole & Camera Obscura:

Light entering a small pinhole in the side of a

large box or room produces an inverted
image on the opposite wall.
How does it do this?!
Only a few light rays from each point on the
subject can get through the tiny opening
and reach the film in small clusters that
cause minimal blurring. rays
A larger hole permits a greater number of rays
from each point on the subject to enter the
camera. These rays are recorded as large circles
which tend to overlap each other, creating an
unclear image.
Who came up with the idea?

The camera obscura was originally used

initially to view solar eclipses.
History of the Camera Obscura and Pinhole:

The camera obscura was originally used

initially to view solar eclipses.
History of the Camera Obscura and Pinhole:

The camera obscura was originally used

initially to view solar eclipses.