Bringing Back Pinhole Photography

Sheila Bocchine, a professional portrait photographer, has been using a pinhole camera for her photos and utilizing this early technology in some interesting ways. The pinhole camera is essentially a tiny hole in a box that exposes the image on film in a slow and cumbersome process.  It originally was a type of Camera Obscura with roots in the mid-19th century that was improved as photography grew in demand.  She is one of the few photographers who uses this method commercially as most opt for modern and often more effective cameras.  However, the pinhole camera has a rich heritage and gives the user the ability to create unique and surreal images.  Sheila discusses her process and gear:

My pinhole camera is lensless, uses medium format (120) film, is made from teak wood and produces square images. The exposures are longer to compensate for the pinhole, which is why you will see subtle blur and motion in all of my images. Since the world rarely stands still, my pinhole camera captures all the beautiful motion and energy onto the negative, thus resulting with dreamscape-like qualities. I feel like each pinhole photograph is a marvelous dream… a surreal and whimsical moment in time that has swirled around my daydreams before coming out as the perfect pinhole photograph.

We applaud Sheila’s willingness to utilize such an antiquated format for photography and hope other artists continue to take advantage of classic technologies.  Feel free to check out her portraits to see some unique lens flares and visual presentations.