Photographers rediscover the humble pinhole camera

By BERNADETTE RAE

There is a high-tech world of difference between the latest digital camera and the old classic photography school exercise of producing an image on a piece of light-sensitive paper through a shoebox pinhole.

But just as the digital image looks ready to rule, a new wave of photographers are turning their attention back to the basics.

Call it retro or rebellion, the quality of images from this most simple of techniques is wonderfully illustrated in The World Through a Pinhole, an exhibition of 23 pictures from 15 international photographers now on at Shadowcatcher the Photographer's Gallery in Auckland.

For Whangarei photographer Diane Stoppard, who curated the show with Northland Polytechnic photography tutor Ellie Smith, the magic of the pinhole lies in its capture of time.

"Something is always going on in these images,' she says. "Exposure varies from 40 seconds to hours and hours. About eight minutes is the recent standard. So things happen."

One thing that obviously happens, Stoppard says, is the absence of the "camera face" — the special frozen expression that most subjects tend to present to any lens — because few can sustain their camera face for that long.

Then "something else begins to show through."

A pinhole camera also produces a huge depth of field with the focus remaining sharp on objects both near and far away. At the same time there is a softness, a slight fuzziness about the images that lends an air of unreality.

"Inexplicable," says Stoppard of the pinhole magic. "And cool."

World Through A Pinhole began in 1996 when Stoppard won the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photographers James White Scholarship to travel overseas to meet photographers working with the pinhole technique.

She was surprised to win, given the specified aim of her application and the fact that no one else was working professionally with pinhole images in New Zealand at that time.

She began at The Pinhole Resource, in New Mexico, with founders Eric Renner and Nancy Spencer. From there she travelled to New York, Britain, France, Germany and Australia, collecting images from artists she met along the way.

It is these images, and Stoppard's portrait Mr Carney which make up the exhibition.

"Eric Renner is the international god of pinhole," Stoppard says, "and he is heavily involved in the symbolism of the pinhole technique. He used a rubber mask of Jimmy Carter, for example, to produce an image of the burning of the American flag."

At the other end of the scale is German industrial and commercial photographer Simon Puschmann, who uses pinhole photography as another tool in his commissioned work for companies like Mercedes-Benz, Pentax and Panasonic.

Then there are the artists who fully exploit the gimmicky side of pinhole photography. British photographer Justin Quinnell used his mouth as a pinhole camera to produce a series of three images titled A Day in the Life of My Mouth at the Dentist, Snogging and Playing Harmonica.

A pinhole camera can be created from almost any container. Stoppard, whose baby was 3 months old when she was putting the exhibition together, used baby formula tins to make giveaway cameras as part of the promotion. Quinnell, who is known for his photographic stunts, has used objects as diverse as a wheelie bin and a Polo mint.

"It makes pinhole photography incredibly accessible," Stoppard says, "and it means that every camera has its own personality.

"Some are very well made technically and give an incredibly sharp image. Others can present a very idiosyncratic point of view."

A room at Shadowcatcher has become a camera obscura and visitors can step inside the darkened room and experience pinhole photography from the inside. An upside-down and back-to-front image of Lorne St will come through a pinhole cut in one window and appear on the walls around them.

When a similar camera was set up at Te Papa for the exhibition even professional newspaper photographers were astounded, Stoppard says.

After three years on the road, Auckland is the last port of call for The World Through a Pinhole. The images are now for sale at prices that range from $450 to $3300 — bargain basement rates say the contributing photographers.

* The World Through a Pinhole is at Shadowcatcher the Photographer's Gallery, Lister Building, Victoria St East, until September 30.