I am fascinated by the purity of gesture in ‘frugal’ photography, with no optical barriers, no view-finder, no shutters or distances or heights and the equally pure but not at all frugal-on the contrary, clamorous-image reflected.  Volumes and geometric perspectives take shape through a pencil mark made ‘transparent’ by a pinhole and, by looking ‘through’ it, an image with a peculiar ‘fidelity’ of its own may be seen.

-Paolo Gioli

Photo Info:

La Giostra Stenopeica, Italy

Photo By: Paolo Gioli

HP.2012.15.22

Excerpt from:

Paolo Gioli, Pinhole Journal (1996)

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Pinhole Photography: From Historic Technique to Digital Application

by: Eric Renner

I had always done portraits as a lithographer-for years and years.  I began to realize that a pinhole photograph provided a composite image of a person-like what you get when you’re drawing a model over a period of time.  It’s a collection of expressions.  The body slumps into a characteristic pose if I’m doing a full figure during the 6 or 7 minute duration of my indoor exposures.  You don’t get a fleeting expression of someone’s face…To me it seems to get at a certain inner truth-like a psychological X-ray.

-Sarah Van Keuren

Photo Info:

“Untitled”

Photo By: Sarah Van Keuren

HP.2012.15.422

Excerpt from:

Sarah Van Keuren, “Interview,” Pinhole Journal, Vol. 3#3 (1987): 18-19

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Pinhole Photography: From Historic Technique to Digital Application

by: Eric Renner

I say that the front of a building-or any open piazza or field-which is illuminated by the sun has a dwelling opposite to it, and if, in the front which does not face the sun, you make a small round hole, all the illuminated objects will project their images through that hole and be visible inside the dwelling on the opposite wall which should be made white; and there, in fact, they will be upside down, and if you make similar openings in several places in the same wall you will have the same result from each.  Hence the images of the illuminated objects are all everywhere on this wall and all in each minutest part of it.  The reason, as we clearly know, is that this hole must admit some light to the said dwelling, and the light admitted by it is derived from one or many luminous bodies.  If these bodies are of various colors and shapes the rays forming the images are of various colors and shapes, and so will the representations be on the wall.

-Leonardo da Vinci

Photo Info:

“Camera Obscura: Outside In”

Photo By: Darius Kuzmickas

HP.2012.15.1205

Excerpt from:

Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, ed. Jean Paul Richter (NY: Dover Publications, 1970)

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Pinhole Photography: From Historic Technique to Digital Application

by: Eric Renner

The pinhole camera techniques seem to function better when used to produce a type of image which is not concerned with commonplace reality but instead focuses on the world of dreams and fantasy.  

-Franco Salmoiraghi, 1968 MFA thesis, Ohio University

Photo Info:

“The Hand of Fate”

Photo By: Martha Casanave

HP.2012.15.1100

FROM THE BOOK:

Pinhole Photography: From Historic Technique to Digital Application

by: Eric Renner

Plato’s image of a world of shadows inhabited by prisoners has, for me, layers of meaning concerning the nature of reality and has a direct relation to the concept of the camera obscure…To me, if you vaguely compared the den to a camera obscure-the sun would be the fire and the people would sit (inside) facing the back of the camera (making room for the pinhole, of course) and would watch the figures thrown on the back (inside) of the camera.  Now, going a step further, this could be considered a metaphor for life in this world-where appearances are not always true and we see as through ‘a mirror darkly’ truth to be revealed in its entirety perhaps in another world.  It’s probably better not to try literally to interpret the simile, but to grasp it intuitively.

-Willie Anne Wright

Excerpt from:

Wille Anne Wright, “Photographs: Pools,” Pinhole Journal 2 (1986): 25

More Info:

Pinhole Photography: From Historic Technique to Digital Application

by: Eric Renner

Photo Info:

“Eva in a Landscape”

Photo By: Willie Anne Wright

HP.2012.15.1100