The Enjoyment of Pinhole Photography

When I started creating pinhole images and shared the pictures with friends and other photographers, they asked me a lot of questions and they were eager to know how those images were formed by a homemade lens less box camera. “Lens less?”, yes! Pinhole photography is lens less photography, as light passes through a tiny hole and exposed the film or a photographic paper inside the camera. Some people asked me “why bother making a camera when there are lots of high tech cameras in market today?” I simply reply “It’s fun making and using pinhole cameras” . I was the type of person who likes to experiment, try new things, create something out of used materials or I may say “recycle”; these are some of the reasons why I tried making my own camera .Although pinhole cameras can be created out of boxes, shells, cans, foam core ,or any available material, I decided to make my own out of illustration boards and make a camera as small as possible. After surfing the internet and doing a lot of reading, I came out with 5 different cameras with different apertures and sizes. I started by searching for thin brass plate that I could use to make a pinhole, after finding one and making a hole using a pin and approximating the measurement of the hole, I started building my first pinhole camera. My first camera uses 35mm film, the camera dimensions is 3X2X2.5 (inches) because I wanted to come up with a small camera, but positioning the film became a problem. I couldn’t get it correctly positioned since there were no sprocket in my camera, I was amazed with the outcome so I decided to make another camera. I searched the internet for more accurate exposure guides although anybody could make one. I then made a camera that will uses photographic paper, still I wanted to make a small camera so I cut a 5x7 paper into 4,so the photographic paper would be 2.5X3.5 and the camera is approximately 3.5X2.5X2 (inches).Putting the paper or replacing the paper requires a changing bag and processing the photo paper requires a dark room, and it’s not that simple so later on I decided to make another one. I then used a 120 film (4x6),this is the first pinhole camera I took along in a camera club outing (I was a member of Cameras In Action then). After processing the black and white film at WELLS and see the result for the first time, my interest in pinhole photography grows even more. I then again searched the internet for more pinhole designs, there I found out that I could use the numbering on the back of the paper backing of the 120 film to serve as the guide so I can adjust the film exactly into position. This 3rd camera creates soft images, soft images just like dream scenes and I’m very happy with it. But my fascination didn’t stop there, I have to make a much more presentable camera, with a tri-pod mount and a much precise pinhole size. I then again made one, this 4th camera uses 120 film (6x6),the box itself measures around 4x2.5x2.5 (inches),the shutter is made out of a cellphone prepaid card and I covered the camera with a paper sticker with a wooded design. Later on, I tried this 4th pinhole camera using a slide 120 film, the colors were great although the images is not that sharp, I’m very happy with the result and I even submitted a pinhole photo to the Pinhole Photography Day Website. Taking pictures using pinhole camera is really a guesswork of exposure and composition since these cameras don’t have a viewfinder and a metering system, the artist should decide and picture in his/her mind the outcome he or she wanted to achieve. Pinhole images are unique in its own way, images that are soft and sometimes very exaggerated, images that even a lens could not create.