The Pinhole project has been live for about a month now and the website is far from being done. There are so many images to be uploaded. If anyone in the Seattle area would like to volunteer in the studio on Saturdays, tagging, organizing and uploading images, times are available beginning in January. There are at least 2500 images still to be done. To be done means to be looked at and appreciated. Handled with care . The entire archive is getting a once or twice over. The images are stunning. And so we move forward slowly, looking at what's been made and thinking about time and light and the best way to present them.
Today I would like to comment on the inherent beauty of this archive andthese long exposure images. Organizing and editing them is a pleasure. The cameras gather light over time, perhaps my favorite part of all photography. The paper responds slowly to the dim pinhole image. The golden rule is long exposures , for the most part, make better images with finer detail. (the longest surviving placement and exposure so far has been two years; that exposure is muddied, no sun trail present). The cameras record everything and capture nothing actually happening in reality but the light; while all the while, something private and personal comes through. Everyone who has made a long exposure knows the image of the place the camera recorded. Exposures are sometimes for months. The act of tending, deciding when to take it down, the anticipation are all a part of the image.
I am dedicated to publishing many images here. Below are three from the archive. Take a look.
This one by Bainbridge High School graduate Troy Armstrong in a round camera he made. Not such what the big shapes are on the left and right.
This image was made by Victoria Bredy in 2015. Search her name on the Home page to see more of her work as a student at Bainbridge High School.
From the early days of the project, this one by Jess Tampa made on the edge o the airspace in her San Francisco apartment. The lines at the top are the sun trails recorded on the wall of the airspace during the three month exposure. Viewers have asked if it was made in a subway station.