Pinhole Photographers

As part as my bloody long-winded putting information into a blog and a sketchbook malarkey, I'm required to include 2 photographers who photography pinhole style:

My chosen photographer no.1: Justin Quinnell, inventor of the 'Smilycam':

I first came across Quinnell whilst searching for pinhole photographers to use in my sketchbook. 

I immediately liked his fun style of pinhole photography, often using his own invention, the 'Smileycam', examples as shown above in the montage. ^^

He was born in Portishead 1962,  and now lives in Bristol where he lectures part-time at University College Falmouth.

He's had TV interviews on programs such as 'Jonathon Ross Show, and The One Show'.

I watched his appearance on The One Show, on Youtube which was quite interesting, whilst being educational.

He's practiced pinhole photography since 1988- bloody long time if you ask me!
And within that time, he's had tonnes of exhibitions and publications, and has held lectures at over 30 different universities in the UK.

He seems like a generally interesting guy, with a great knowledge for everything pinhole, offering all the information necessary in Rachel Weisz's movie The Brother Bloom, in which he appears in the credits as 'pinhole consultant'.

His style is so unique, i've never seen anything like the one of the 6 month solargraphs he produced, below. Nor anything of similarity to his 'Smileycam' photos. I love the spontaneity behind his in-mouth photographs.The images are enough to make you smile! I'd love to meet him, and be put to shame over my lame pinhole photography!

Solargraph- a long exposure photograph which shows the path taken by the sun across the sky.

Quinnell's pinhole photograph of the SS Great Britain, Bristol

Pinhole Photographer no.2: Mark Tweedie: Pinhole photographer, poet and bookbinder:

Wasn't able to find a massive amount of information about this guy as he generally doesn't seem to be very well know. 

But i know from what i've seen that he's a wonderful photographer with a very dark, haunting style of pinhole photography.  And living in Coventry, West Midlands from what i find.

His photos are beautifully shot, it's definitely worth taking a peek at his gorgeous gallery. 

He appears to be an artist within his words:  

"The long exposures required, sometimes lasting hours, grace the images with a powerful sense of narrative.-here is little conscious thought behind this, more that the inevitably slow processes involved allow - if not impose - a wider view of what is happening at the time."

I've discovered that it's been difficult to find useful information about him from anywhere other than his personal website, and even there, it was more about the work than him himself!

Perhaps this is because he truly isn't that well know. Which is a shame really. As it means the world is missing out of his beautiful, mysterious images. Or perhaps be doesn't want his personal life to be know, but just his work- and for it to be appreciated.

 His photography style is so enviable, i would love to possess the creativity that his images posses. 

This is a wonderful example of his work, from his 'Dream Of Flight' series it makes me curious, wanting to know what went on in the photograph, if there's a story behind the image. I wonder if he uses himself as the model in this photo.

I've seen a photograph of the man himself, and i thought him to be a lot older. Like 50+. But i can't even make a rough judgment on his age though. If it is him in the photograph above, he appears to have a young body-certainly not that of pensioner. 

However old though, he'll still be the same mysterious pinhole photographer with more creativity than i could ever possess.

More Positive + Negative Prints

After struggling to work out how to change these prints at home from negative to positive as i don't have Photoshop on my laptop, only Paint Shop Pro 9 which i have little knowledge about using, i managed to rustle these together!:

This is a self-portrait, taken on the college campus. 

 

I originally wanted to capture my head shaking side to side, in order to create an illusion of having two faces like in the image above of Placebo's 'Meds' album. 

But i obviously wasn't shaking my head quick enough whilst the pinhole was exposed for roughly 30/40 seconds. I don't know, i struggled to keep tabs on the times i exposed my lens for.

My  bad.

Despite not getting the result i wanted, i still like this print and intend to upload it onto my Deviantart.

I think i'm gonna have to try and convert the negative of this print into a positive again sometime, next time using Photoshop. Don't get me wrong, i don't mind the positive Paint Shop Pro version, but i am intrigued over how it would look if i did it properly using Photoshop.

I really like both the negative & positive print of this!

They both are quite dramatic i feel, the negative version is really affective-  with the blacked out lighting suspended from the ceiling.

Definitely proud of this, shot it in the atrium at the college for roughly about 10 minutes, a perfectly timed exposure in my opinion! 

I preferred shooting inside the college, when photographing outside, you really have to get the exposure time right. 

This was the worst print. Ever. It's just crap. Ridiculously over-exposed, with very little detail.

Except for the grass, college building, trees and seating.

Mm. Exposed it for-? I don't even know. Too long obviously!

Pinhole Photography College Work!

Hello! Well, this is the first ever blog I've written in, i guess there's a first for everything..

Each individual student on the National Diploma course has been asked to create a blog account.

So here is mine!

As shown below is some results from my attempt at pinhole photography:

But first,

 My Vans Pinhole Camera, woohoo!

Annie & Sheera with their Pringle tin cameras!

 Before & After, lightened and rotated using Adobe Photoshop

Used a friend as the subject for this!

For this photograph, i must have exposed it roughly for 2 minutes, correct me if I'm wrong though.. It's easy to loose track of exposure time when shooting and developing.

Really quite pleased with the result of this photograph, the first 7 or so images i shot all turned out to be complete failures!

So it was a delight for me to find photographs that weren't ridiculously  over-exposed!  

                                                



This was the first print that was somewhat a success, using my vans shoebox! I was finally happy, developing blacked out prints can be somewhat depressing.

I can't be sure on how long i exposed this for, I'm sure my tutor could tell me! He's a genius.

Mm, do i guess how long i did this for?.... A minute or two maybe?

Ooh, and here's a how-to page scanned from my sketchbook...

Hope it's readable. :)