Back in the Community College days, some friends and I discovered the world of pinhole cameras. Its pretty cool because you can build one using anything with a hollow interior. Our designs ranged from shoe boxes to more elaborate wooden models.
The idea was to have your camera light tight and to make the hole as small as possible; its just easier to control exposure that way. Of course light tight isn’t always an exact science and the holes could range in size, but the imperfections they left behind, to me, were all part of the appeal.
The photos these cameras would produce was always a surprise. In simpler models you could skip film completely and just use photo paper. Personally, this made it easier for me to develop the pictures at home since I lacked equipment such as an enlarger.
It was also nice to use paper because each camera, depending on its shape and size, would bend the paper therefore distorting the image. Cans, or other rounded objects, achieved images like a fish-eye lens, while inserting the paper diagonally along a rectangular film plane gave images a certain view camera aesthetic.
I knew one guy that used a pinhole camera to do a documentary on the homeless of Raleigh. That to me is one of those situations where the tools used to produce the art reflect that art that is produced. I have to give him a lot of credit for choosing to do his project that way. It definitely added an appropriate style to his images and their subject matter.
Anyways, it reminded me of the article on the Rough Theater because no one needs a camera with all the bells, whistles, and digital displays to make a photograph. Having to guess your composition, and printing results that are basically a mystery to you, always has a great payoff in the end. Sure an LCD screen is handy, but anyone can point and shoot. Pinholes actually present a bit of a challenge.
I think another way in which I’ve experienced this idea of ‘rough art’ is in intro to production here at UNCW. Each film we made required a good amount of improvisation, just as 6x1 does. Problem solving doesn’t come in the form of a big budget for us college students, so its only natural that we compensate with creativity. Using a rolling chair as a dolly is something that most film students have experienced, and it is just one of many ways that our films look differently, but work the same as big money productions.
I personally like the idea of using ones mind rather than ones wallet.
1 comment:
Really great examples, here. I especially like your example of the guy who made the doc about the homeless in Raleigh with a pinhole camera. He wasn't just interested in the uniqueness of the medium but rather, the medium actually served a purpose in reinforcing the theme of the doc. So it's not just about "better" image quality. It's about image quality that works with the subject matter to achieve an overall greater cinematic depth. We actually talk about this type of thing, later in the semester.
Post a Comment