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July 28, 2007

My First Pinhole Photo

I still remember the assignment in my high school photography class. It seemed magical. You could make a camera out of a coffee can? It sounded like a Macgyver invention and I think that was probably the moment I was hooked on photography.

We loaded our cameras with photo paper negatives in the darkroom and headed outside. I pointed my coffee can at a fire hydrant, uncovered the pinhole and waited 45 seconds on that frigid day. Back in the darkroom we unloaded our cameras and developed the photo paper. It worked!

Now it is over ten years later and I have to work harder to get that magical feeling from photography. It is easy to take for granted how amazing picture taking really is. Technology has convinced us that anyone can take a picture if they have the right machine. All you have to do is point your phone and push a button. I think many people feel really dissappointed when they spend so much money on a camera only to find that their photos don’t improve. The flood of photos fills the internet and our memory cards but great photos are hard to find. If you are looking to find the wonder we felt as children when we got our first roll of film developed maybe all you really need is a coffee can and a pinhole.

Posted by Adrian at July 28, 2007 8:36 AM

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