In an age of increasingly complex technology, this work revisits the simplest form of photographic image capture. A pinhole camera is the simplest design: a box with a literal pinhole for an aperture. No lens, no moving parts, no batteries. I began this project in November 2004 by creating a 360 degree panoramic camera with multiple apertures. The results were quite surprising: overlapping subjects from the multiple perspectives, superimposed objects, placement alterations as one pinhole perspective overlapped another...and funky color due to long exposure reciprocity failure.
Often my work incorporates movement and long exposures. I am interested less in what the photograph can record of “reality” than in what it can do the extend vision beyond what the eye can see. Making pinhole motion images is truly a process of discovery. How objects will merge, overlap and distort is unpredictable.

My recent subjects have been people and architecture. Creating portraits with the pinhole takes subject and viewer beyond ordinary expectations: the image isn’t sharp; motion blurs; individuals appear multiple times. The results suggest mystery, the passage of time and are more about the place and moment than detailed representation. Architectural structures are reduced to repeating graphic elements where the design of the space is emphasized and made more fantastical.
I am continually intrigued by the narrative quality that results from the multiple vantage points, plus the merging of subjects into one another creating odd fantastical relationships. We typically expect a single exposure to record one frozen moment of time, and multiple images suggests the passage of time via several exposure. The pinhole images transform time and space by incorporating the appearance of multiple exposures within a single capture on film.

Technical Info.
Each image is a single exposure of the pinhole camera on color negative film. Exposure times range from 1/2 second to several minutes. The film is scanned, adjusted in Photoshop (no manipulation of the image) and printed on a large format Epson archival ink jet printer.