FEBRUARY 2012 - ISSUE 01 - Massive Magazine

36FEATURELight, and the contraptionsbuilt to capture it, is a trulyamazing thing. It’s somethingI still can’t fully comprehend.Light is everything to photography;the way it falls, what it fallson and what it doesn’t fall onmake up the image on the photographthat you hold in yourhand. One of my first tutors atuniversity told our class, “WhatI will teach you will ruin yourlife because you will never lookat light the same way again.”Traditionally, photographyrelied on tangible objects; rollsof film that wound through thebody of the camera, darkenedrooms, enlargers, numerousdifferent types of chemicals,light sensitive silver gelatinepaper. Photography is so advancednow, light years awayfrom its beginnings. Digitalcameras record all the lightinformation electronically ona digital sensor chip. You cansnippety snap away without acare, download the photo filesto your computer, and view immediately.My digital is great, so easyand instant which is essentialfor clients who expect a fastturnaround, but with all thiscomplicated technology it’s easyto forget how it all started. It’salso easy to forget how wonderfully,magically simple it canbe. I have been feeling increasinglydisenchanted with the immediacyof digital technology.There is no longer any mysteryand the sense of occasion thatfilm photography holds. There’ssomething so special aboutdeveloping your own photos.About doing every single stepin the image-making yourself.I remember making pin-holecameras back in high-school. Acamera made from a cardboardbox. It’s hard to wrap your mindaround how something so crudecould produce an image. It’scrazy, enchanting, and it reallygets me excited about the powerof light.The first camera was simplya room completely darkened,save for a small aperture to letin the light and was called acamera obscura. Whatever isoutside the room is projectedonto the back wall completelyto scale yet upside down andinverted. This happens becauselight travels in straight lines,it passes through the hole andstrikes the surface behind. It isa manipulation of light usingrefraction and projection. Thereare references to this light phenomenonas far back as Aristotlein the 4th century.pin-hole camera is a smallerversion of a camera ob-Ascura, which you can make outof anything from a matchboxto a coffee tin. I set to workon making my camera out of ashoe box. I carefully wrap thickblack tape all over it just in caseof light leaks in the corners andinsert a thin piece of aluminiumwith a minute pin-hole exactly0.3 of a millimetre in the centreof the lid (carefully calculatedaccording to the focal lengthof the box). In the dark room Iattach a piece of light sensitivephotographic paper to the backof the box, replace the lid, pressmore black tape around theedge of the lid as well as a pieceover the pin hole, and then Icarry my awkwardly large camerahome. I want to take a photoin a place that is significant tome.It’s a bright cloudless day andI guess my exposure to be oneminute. I secure the camera tothe front fence facing my house,peel back the tape concealingthe pin-hole and sit motionlesson my front lawn facing thecamera for 30 seconds. I standup and move around behind thecamera for the remaining 30seconds of the exposure. Pinholeexposures are always quitelong and I figure I might as wellmake the most of the mediumby having fun with it.I go back into the darkroomthe next day. To think one photocan take two days to create. I amwell aware that pin-hole photographyis a game of chance,and I am absolutely thrilled bythis game. I lift the paper out ofthe box and slip it into the trayof developer chemical. Breathheld, excited. Gently I rockit back and forth and let thechemicals wash over the print,the image slowly forming like adeep-sea diver emerging to theocean’s surface, back to the dazzlinglight. There it is! A perfectnegative of my little house inthe centre. The buildings besideit and the lawn in front ofit stretching away and gettingswallowed up by the heavy vignettingaround the edges. Andthere I am, a ghostly, diminutivefigure. The light reflectedoff my pale pink house is sobright it sears through my bodymaking me almost non-existentfrom the shoulders up. The resultsof this primitive techniqueproduce a haunting poetry thata digital camera could neverreplicate. This is what it is allabout. Making an image with acardboard box and some light. Iam reminded of a quote by EugeniaParry who states that thepractice of pin-hole photography“is a fluid, mystical unionwith the sun”. This is what it allcomes down to and where it allstarted. Limber, luscious, illuminating,inexplicable light.