Pinhole Camera Photos

Students this week explored pinhole photography. Cameras were made from metal and cardboard cylindrical containers. The inside was sprayed black. A hole was cut in the front of the container, and a piece of aluminum foil was taped inside of the container covering that opening. A pin was then used to punch a hole in the aluminum foil, making it the lens (pinhole) that would let the light into the camera to take the photograph. Photo paper replaces the use of film, and cameras were loaded with the paper under darkroom safelights. Students went out into the school yard and exposed their images for between 15 to 30 seconds. The camera was brought back into the darkroom, the paper removed, and developed and fixed in trays, and then washed and dryed in the classroom. The images produced are negatives, just like camera negatives that are shot on film. These black and white prints were then scanned, and inverted in Photoshop, producing these postive images you see in this slideshow. These cameras produce a very soft and rich image. You will notice in several of the photos, that some of the people in the photos are "transparent". That is done on purpose. The person in the photo stayed still for most of the exposure, but then moved out of the frame exposing the background through the area they stood in, making them transparent, or in blurred motion. On this day that we shot the photos, we had varying results- some exposures were overexposed producing very light prints, some underexposed producing very dark prints. That is due to where the photo was taken (in bright sunlight or in the shade), by the light that was available when shot, the size of the pinhole (lens), and the length of the exposure.The prints whether detailed or not still have a unique quality only found in pinhole photography. Finding the right exposure for your camera, under the available light when the photo is taken may take several attempts to get a perfect exposure. We did not have that luxury of time.