Very early pinhole pictures, like mouth as a camera, or shooting the pinhole into a camera
“In contrast to „normal“ photography, which is considered a representation of the view of the human eye by most of the beholders, I see one of the potentials of pinhole cameras in having their own, non-human way of „seeing“. Although pinhole pictures are photographs in the true sense of the word, I like to leave a doubt in my works, if they really are a product of the practice of photography. The resulting effect of using multiple pinholes is the complex of possible preceptions of the images portrayed. This allows for a plurality of associations.”
“My work is created with specially generated pinhole cameras for each project. After darkroom processing I digitally modify the photographies to bestow them a special note. In my opinion the use of a pinhole camera at times, where digital media are available, is not a fallback into ancient history of photography, but rather a conscious decision. Creative work with the pinhole camera in combination with digital applications offers extraordinarily sophisticated possibilities for new photographical areas.”
Very good series on Venice, also published as a book
“Images and texts on pinhole photography since 1989, with special interest in the theoretical and metaphorical implications of pinhole as a specific means. Amongst many publications we mention: 1998: Cine-teatros de Portugal (with 50 b/w pinhole images of old portuguese cinemas); 2000: Vom Ansehen der Dinge (a new approach to pinhole in education, with 100 b/w images made by brazilian and german teenagers). Also texts in several pinhole catalogues and cientific journals.
Dr. phil. in Educational Sciences, teaching photography at the Instituto Politécnico of Coimbra, Portugal.”
He takes doorsize pictures with his lorry, which he rebuild into a mobile Camera Obscura
"Judith Harnisch nutzt die Reduktion als bildnerisches Element in der Fotografie. Sie bewegt sich dabei auf der Gratwanderung zwischen Konkretem und Abstraktion. Die Resultate sind malerische Fotografien die mit den Sehgewohnheiten des Betrachters spielen."
”Figure - frieze, figure - irritation.
Using a pinhole camera scenarios of perception are rendered possible which nature in this form has not intended for the human eye. Simulation - experiment - game.
A black box, a small hole, film material and light. This camera follows the law of optics but is more easily manipulated than any other camera could ever be. Manipulation of the aperture - manipulation of the film. Many holes placed next to each other in a row or in a circle, registering 360º. The entire film serves as a "negative": stretched into a plane or wrapped around a kernel it collects the light in the camera. Very slowly – time passes, is "fixated" on the film and remains recognizable as such. Traces of light - traces of time. Figure - form, figure – imagination.”
Here you find one of the very early pinhole work, the pinholestructures, but also more recent work by 1967 of Gottfried Jaeger.
„In my pinhole work of the last decade I’ve been interested in the shape of common and trivial objects of every day life, like kitchen utensils, vegetables etc. Using various self-designed cameras I discovered ways to change their familiar and well-known forms to an unfamiliar appearance and new interpretation, for example by different kinds of distortion, by attacking and cutting the film material, by segmentation of the image field”
„Klaus- Dieter Krazewski, born 1953. For about 20 years I took photos with pinhole cameras. My first camera was a washing powder box. 15 years ago during my holidays I bought a suitcase in the south of Spain. The last owner of the suitcase was a representative who sold cosmetics. I rebuilt it to a pinhole camera and since that day I use it to take my photos. Most of the pictures for my exhibition were created in this suitcase. Another very important camera is my big tin. This tin once contained powder for vegetable soup and has got a volume of about 15 litres. With both of these cameras I only make big negatives in the sizes 2030 cm or 4030 cm. My photos are exclusive platin/palladium - prints or saltprints.”
Well known written alphabet with pinhole cameras.
“Since 1993, Edgar Lissel uses the technique of the camera obscura. For the works "Città del Duce",1993, "Illusion der Macht" (Illusion of Power), 1994 and "Gotteshaeuser" (Houses of God), 1995, an altered van was used as mobile pinhole camera. Here, the camera was confronting, as artificial space, the architecture of human ideologies and religious believes. The works "Raeume - Fotografische Dekonstruktionen" (Rooms - Photographic deconstructions), 1996/97 and "Raeume aus Glas" (Rooms of glass), 1998-2001 base on living quarters respectively museum showcases, converted into walk-in pinhole cameras. The newly defined spaces become camera. At the same time and in addition, they portray themselves in form of silhouettes of the objects inside the room respectively the objects inside the museum showcases. The photographic image of the pinhole camera and the silhouettes of the objects both create their optical illusion on the basis of simple optical principles. By this installations, only few unique photographic pieces are produced.”
Portraits are the main topic in my work. For the photography I used thecamera obscura technique. This was for me an obvious choice since I feel itoffers the perfect possibility for visualising dreams. It is not what peoplelook like but what they feel that is important. The extended exposure timedemands a pause for thought in the hectic of city life; photography becomesan act of meditation.The surrounding sounds caught on tape and the interviews to each pictureintensify the impressions of the photographs. They take the listener by thehand and offer him very private, almost intimate access to the places shown.
Audigraphien - Photographie im Vorbeifahren
„Der Vorteil einer Photographie ist, dass Sie es ermoeglicht, durch das schnelle Abdruecken des Ausloesers einen kurzen Moment unseres Wahrnehmungsausschnittes deutlich und detailgenau abzubilden.Es entsteht das Bild eines spezifischen Ortes zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt. Doch entspricht dies tatsaechlich unserer Wahrnehmung? Befinden wir uns nicht staendig in Bewegung und nehmen unsere Umgebung gerade nicht deutlich und detailgetreu, sondern oft unspezifisch und zufaellig wahr? Genau dieser Frage ist Oliver Moest mit seinen Photographien auf der Spur, die er auf Autofahrten durch Berlin macht. Der Titel der Serie lautet „Audigraphien“, eine Bezeichnung, die auf Moests Audi 80 zurueckgeht, dessen Seitenfenster waehrend der etwa zweiminuetigen Autofahrten als „Stativ“ diente. Je nach Ampel - und Geschwindigkeitssituation erzielt er mehr oder weniger wiedererkennbare Bildergebnisse. Sie sind bestimmt durch den Verkehrsfluss, durch das Fahren der Kamera selbst. Moest geht es - im Gegensatz zu konventionellen Geschwindigkeitsaufnahmen, die alles Konstante scharf und alles bewegte unscharf abbilden- um eine direktere, subjektive Ausdrucksweise. Er moechte seine eigene private Wahrnehmung von alltaeglichen Fahrten vermitteln,in der sich die feststehende Umwelt in Bewegungsunschaerfe aufloest.
Wichtig ist ihm nicht die Relation zwischen ihm und der vorbeirauschenden Umwelt, nicht die Geschwindigkeit an sich, sondern der subjektive Blick auf die Stadt. Oliver Moest kann nicht genau kalkulieren, wieviel Strecke er innerhalb seiner Belichtungszeit zuruecklegen kann, ob er schnell vorankommen oder lange ins Stocken geraten wird. Je konkreter das Bild, desto langsamer war sein Fortbewegungstempo, waehrend hohes tempo ein abstraktes Bildergebnis zur Folge hat. Die Photos spiegeln somit seine Situation von Bewegung und Stillstand wieder, real Gesehenes bleibt bisweilen verborgen, waehrend vielleicht nicht Wahrgenommenes festgehalten wird - analog unserer Erinnerung, die selektiv und selten detailgenau ist. Bestechend ist die lyrische Stimmung der Photographien, vor allem hervorgerufen durch den blaugrauen Gesamtton der Aufnahmen. Vor allem das Phaenomen der Unschaerfe, heute ein aeusserst aktueller und bestimmender Faktor aller Bildmedien, macht die Lochkamera-Aufnahmen von Moest - alle „HighTech²- Entwicklungen ignorierend - zu einem aktuellen Ausdrucksmittel unserer Zeit.“ Dr. Birgit Jooss, 2003
„Axel Mugge laeßt den experimentellen Prozeß seines fotografischen Schaffens bei der Entwicklung eines Kamerakonzeptes beginnen. Die speziell fuer jede Arbeit entwickelten Lochkameras bilden die Grundlage fuer eine Kunst, die das Paradigma der detailgenauen Wiedergabe der optisch sichtbaren Welt durch Fotografie in Frage stellt. Die so entstehenden Bilder lassen die inhaltliche Bedeutung von Perspektive erkennen. Waehrend die konventionalisierte Zentralperspektive eine Verengung der moeglichen Interpretationen von Wirklichkeit darstellt, sehen wir bei diesem Kuenstler eine OEffnung fuer gleichzeitige, parallele und sich ueberlagernde Realitaetsfragmente. Hier wird deutlich, wie Wirklichkeit in ihrer Pluralitaet nicht mehr erfaßt werden kann. Divergierende Seherfahrungen des staedtischen Lebens werden aufgegriffen, und eingerastete Wahrnehmungsroutinen hinterfragt. Das so transportierte Chaos laeßt Freiraeume entstehen, da Strukturen im Wandel sind und neu entstehen.“ Autor: Armin Dinn
oberhammer.net is the site of the pinhole-photographer ronka oberhammer. More pinhole pictures from ronka oberhammer are on http://www.plastic-world.delinsenfrei.de is the site of a groop of young photographers, who do modern, mostly sharp and mostly couloured pinhole pictures. Pictures of different photographers are shown in changing galleries. The site gives also a little technical help. www.linsenfrei.de
Works with pinhole cameras for films since more then 10 years.
“The pinhole camera does not work like an ordinary apparatus, where you sight an object, release the camera and therefore fix a short cut-out of space and time. An exposure takes several minutes or can even take hours. The shot will have to be well thought through, because the one film, the one exposure can usually not been repeated immediately. - Thus the pinhole camera transforms the shooting process into a special event. With conventional cameras the apparatus forms a barrier between the eye of the photographer and the object, that can hardly be breached. With the pinhole camera photography becomes a contemplative and meditational event. During the permanent exposure there is plenty of time to view the object and to enter into a dialogue with the object and the developing image. - The seemingly simply built of the pinhole camera, which basically consists of a light secured hallow space with a little hole, prevents the interference of technical components. The light beams fall directly through the hole onto the film. They literally get sucked into the dark chamber. - Photography with a pinhole camera can be regarded as an original form of photography. The pinhole camera engages in a highly topical way with our world and its visual conceptions. The equal treatment of all its exposed parts, the slight blurness, the strong distortion and the random framing create unusual pictures, which do not want to prove the authenticity of photographic images, but instead are documents of human perception and our broken relationship to the world.
Ditmar Schaedel, born 1960, studied Arts and Literature in Hildesheim, he works at the center for music and arts at the university of Duisburg, he lives in Kevelaer.”
"In the digital age, the idea of pinhole-pictures may seem oddly anachronistic. Yet the visual possibilities of the camera obscura are considerable more nuanced than is commonly thought. Marcus Schwier´s interior views of the Duesseldorf Art Academie demonstrate that the pinhole camera can be virtually employed as a painting instrument. The dicision to present the 4 x 5 inch contact prints in their unenlarged original format is evidence of Schwier´s reduced and similtaneously elqouent working method." David Galloway
"....Yet this “homage to Edward Muybridge” also contains a number of features characteristic of the art of Luzia Simons: memories of early silent films with their typical, underdeveloped approach to the handling of light, with which only a segment of any given scene could be illuminated, and the dramatic constrasting of light and shadow to create the effect of bodies growing forth from shadow into the light. Luzia Simons makes deliberate use of a device reminiscent of the pin-hole camera, a photographic technique whose origins lie in the archeological realm of the early years of photography, purposefully exploiting its particular conceptual and aesthetic qualities. And speaking of conceptual qualities, the first of these that comes to mind is the keyhole effect. Photography is an instrument of observation; the photographer remains a passive onlooker, concealed behind the keyhole of a primitive lens." Peter Weiermair ueber Luzia Simons – 1998
“Frank Stoelben started working with the pinhole camera in 1993. He is since then very much interested in both the stunning simplicity of that technique on the one hand and the multitude of possibilities and astonishing results it offers on the other hand. With various self-designed cameras, some with double, triple or more pinholes, Frank Stoelben photographed several series of black and white pictures of which some have been shown in his exhibitions along with his other camera work. He uses the pinhole technique for a variety of motifs: landscape, still life, portrait and experimental abstract photography. Stoelben´s catalogue CAMERA OBSCURA (out of print) shows examples of his pinhole pictures along with a complete construction plan of his basic self-designed pinhole camera, Benedikt Geulen, Cologne, Germany.”
Member of the group “f 1054” early seventies, publishing several booklets and books about pinhole. Installations with pinhole cameras.Lives and works as artist and journalist in ruhr district and Cologne , Germany.
One year exposures of the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin and other projects about pinhole or abstraction.
