Pinhole | Studios of Neptune

I received this pinhole camera as a gift before I turned twenty years old. It is made of cherrywood, takes 120 mm roll film, has an adjustable frame for exposures, all brass fittings, including a standard tripod mount and a spring-loaded shutter. Since it has no lens, there is a simple fixed aperture of f500 - just a pinhole in the brass less than half a millimeter wide. To figure the exposure time for a photograph, there is a handy wheel on the back. Most exposures in the daytime range between 5 seconds and 10 minutes.

I used it only occasionally for the first decade of it being in my possession, gradually getting more used to the function of how it operates and the dreamy feeling that it brings to the compositions. With no viewfinder, the approximation of where the edge of the frame stands is a clever craft in itself that stands aside from subject matter and timing. In all that I could consider about using this camera, it took several years of consistent use to arrive at the concept of what i was actually doing with it, beyond the novelty. And in effect, it reminded me of how, when I first ventured a personal focus into photography I experienced an odd partitioning of reality into compositions and symbolic representations that caused an intense and sorrowful dissonance from the living force of life... and using this camera and the need for patience between pushing the shutter to the side and standing silently, listening to the wind blow and the imagining the coldness of a stream, brought me back.

So perhaps, I could say that what I solved in myself, by way of this camera, is best shown in this clump of multiples framed in black here. Being in the seasons and feeling life living.

And below, we just have some examples a little larger so you can see the detail and maybe some of the grain textures. With the exposure always over a couple seconds, any movement becomes blurry in these, which was a big reason I like to photograph water with this camera.