Finally collected together in one place, these pinhole photographs are my contributions to pinhole day over the past 15 years. They were all submitted to the online exhibition at pinholeday.org
This annual event unites pinhole photographers around the world who are each invited to produce and submit a single photograph as part of the international, non-judgemental exhibition. Anyone can take part, the only requirement being that the image is made on Pinhole Day (the last Sunday in April), and produced using a pinhole camera.
I try not to over-think my entry each year, or plan too much in advance, and just work with whatever comes to mind. Often, I will use the occasion to experiment with a new idea.
2024 - Bandstand
Bandstand in Llandrindod. Double exposure using Baldax camera modified with pinhole.
2023 - Pots
Earthenware pots in window-light. Cardboard tube camera & Ilford MGIV paper negative.
2022 - One day solargram
Dawn to dusk solargram of a favourite subject: the sycamore at the front of my house. Film canister camera
2021 - Felixtowe 625
This enigmatic text is printed on a packing case, and demonstrates the distortion created with an anamorphic camera. The "Gondoliers Anamorphic Camera" is simply a metal can with a pinhole in the end cap!
2020 - I can hear the sea
An imaginary trip to the beach...
2019 - Leaf texture
A clump of Alchemilla mollis after the rain. Quite abstracted & distorted due to the curvature of the film canister camera.
2018 - Any old iron
Still life with iron and strange creatures. They always seem to find a way into my pinhole photos!
2017 - Bottles
A few old (& new) bottles from my collection. Set up out of the wind in my barn doorway with backlight diffused through an acrylic panel. I stood the bottles on a glass sheet to create a reflection, but cropped the image a bit too close as framing is always difficult without a viewfinder!
2016 - Eden re-imagined
The serpent vanished with the apple and more tempting fruits were offered...
2015 - Brenda's shed
A four month solargram made in the garden of a friend. Camera left in place from New Year to pinhole day.
2014 - Herbalist with herbs
My friend Rhiannon with herbs little & large. I'm stretching the definition of "herbs" to include the oak tree in the background!
2013 - solargram
A four month exposure from a paint-can pinhole camera mounted at roof level on the front of my house. The ground is lighter than expected because at some point during the exposure we had a fall of snow.
2012 - Dark Beaver
There's no guarantee of sunshine on Pinhole Day, and today there was no break in the rain either. So I set up a still life with some old wooden cotton reels which I've collected. This photograph required an exposure of around 15 minutes in the dismal daylight through a window.
2011 - Easter egg hunt
This year's Pinhole Day coincided with Easter, and Broomhill Sculpture Garden arranged an Easter-egg hunt for children. In the photo, the Gargantuan hand of a sulpture confuses the scale and makes the egg look tiny!
2009 - Road Movie A470 Vulcan
I wanted to make a symmetrical image with the road receeding to a central vanishing point, and so needed to straddle the central road markings. The photo was made at 6am on Sunday morning in the quiet rural area where I live, but even so I had to make three or four attempts before I managed to complete a 30 second exposure without having to pull over for another vehicle! Apart from a brief experiment a few months before, this was my first "road movie". Little did I know where this would eventually lead, as it was the genesis of the cross-country odyssey, Road Movie 52nd Parallel which I completed the following year.
2008 - dinosaur at large
Lee Bay, North Devon, UK. This friendly Tyrannosaurus Rex emerged from the Braunton estuary mud & came out to play on pinhole day.