Pinhole photography

Ever since I was a little girl I've enjoyed photography. Even though I use digital now, I grew up with film and learned how to develop and process my own photos in the darkroom. In both high school and college I enrolled in photography classes as an escape from all the science and math classes I was taking. Not that I don't like those subjects, but I think it's good to be well rounded.

One of the assignments we were given in our undergraduate photography class was to take photos using homemade pinhole cameras. It was a lot of fun to do and I was really impressed with how the photos turned out. It's so simple to do (assuming you have easy access to a darkroom) - all you need is a box or something that can be sealed shut to serve as the camera body, a small piece of aluminum (from a soda can) with a tiny needle sized hole for your lens, black electrical tape to seal your box closed and prevent light from getting in, and a piece of photo paper, which you can cut down to whatever size you need.

I recently scanned in some of my photos and thought I'd share them. Our scanner is a bit old and dirty so the quality here is a bit reduced. The first three were taken with a camera that had 3 apertures which is why the subject repeats.

The last two photographs are not pinhole photos. I made them by laying the lightbulb (or in the case of the photo on the right, the broken glass pieces) directly on the photo paper under the enlarger and exposing the paper for a few seconds.

Stay tuned for more on how I made my cameras later in the week!