pinhole (ou sténopé en français) is the basic of photography. No lens but a plate instead, in which a tiny hole has been done (by a pin in the early days, hence the word pinhole). Nowadays, better tools and technology can be used. The hole has to be small enough to give an acceptable though slightly blurry picture. Exposure is usually so long that there is no need for a precise shutter, a flap to cover the hole and a watch will do. No lens means a tin can or even a shoebox can be used with minimal modifications to create a picture, back to da Vinci’s camera obscura… A film or sensitive paper in a tight black container will do the job. Another thing I’d like to built one day. Here I used a proper camera with a pinholed body cap in lieu of the lens. And here are some vintage pictures, 1850 appearance. I choose a sepia rendering but next post will be cyanotype aspect.
this week I flew to the Rift valley for Flying Medical Service on the regular Endulen clinic tour. Here is the plane in Engoveroni on the slope of Empakai crater, Rift valley. Behind stands Kerimasi, an extinct volcano. The picture would have looked even more vintage with a biplane instead of a Cessna 206
a nearby little valley
overlooking one of the numerous ravines in that area. Slope of a crater…in this case it looks like a giant fork has carved hundreds of gullies and crests. Spectacular scenery! And really interesting landing on the strip located on such a sloped crest.
Volcano Oldoinyo Lengai on the horizon. Imagine these people in this quiet village when in 2007 the volcano woke up, erupting on a nearly daily basis. When the plume reached 55.000 feet (17km) they must have been really concerned, though Masai people are a really cool bunch.
Long exposures I said, up to 1 sec even under the bright African sun. So if the subject, people or animals or leaves are not perfectly still, it will be blurry.
If you ever wondered why there were no people on early landscape photography, that was because the by then photographic emulsions were of such a low sensitivity (a few iso instead of the standard 100 iso films we’ve known for years) that even slow movements couldn’t be recorded. People would just be like ghosts passing in front of the camera and leaving no mark.
Of course Photoshop and other systems can create a similar aspect from a normal picture, not so fun though.
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