Pinhole Photography

1993 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Influences of art

The pinhole can be explained by a simple law of the physical world. Light travels in a straight line and when some of the rays reflected from a bright subject pass through a small hole in thin material they do not scatter but cross and reform as an inverted image on a flat surface held parallel to the hole (Wilgus). The pinhole has served many purposes over time but the greatest contribution has been made in photography. Without the pinhole, the camera and photography as we know it would not exist. However, modern photography has evolved away from the pinhole process and into the digital world. With this evolution the pinhole has widely fallen out of use, however, since the 1960s and 1970s the world has seen a revival of the pinhole. Not only has it been revived, it has been revolutionized. Creating images of soft, ghostly beauty, with warped images, and disappearing subjects; the pinhole camera truly holds an aesthetic all its own. There are infinite options to choose from in the making of a pinhole camera— an art that is only limited by the designer’s imagination. This research paper is written with the intention of spanning the history of the pinhole camera— a history that reaches far beyond the mere invention of the photograph. The invention of the pinhole camera is an invention of photography itself, it is an art, and it is a media that has been revived in today’s artistic field of study.

The earliest record we have of the pinhole was made by Chinese philosopher Mo Ti in 4000 BC, he was the first to describe the optical phenomenon he called a "collecting place" or "locked treasure room." He discovered that light passing through a small hole in the wall would cast an inverted colored image onto an opposing, blank wall (H...

... middle of paper ...

... the way to Justin Quinnell’s mouth the pinhole has carved out its own place in the world. It has influenced our society and the world around us immeasurably— for where would we be without the photograph?

Works Cited

Renner, Eric. Pinhole Photography: Rediscovering a Historic Technique. Boston: Focal Press, 1995. 4-65, 157. Print.

Hirsch, Robert. Seizing the Light: A Social History of Photography. 2nd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 1-2. Print.

Stewart, Doug. "The Pinhole Point of View." Smithsonian. 31.2 (2000): 124. Web. 4 Dec. 2011.

Wilgus, Jack and Beverly. "The Magic Mirror of Life: An Appreciation of the Camera Obscura." brightbytes.com. N.p., August 2008. Web. 4 Dec 2011. .

Show More
Related

  • Mathew Brady: The Father of Photojournalism

    859 Words  | 2 Pages

    Born of Irish immigrants in 1823 in a little place called Warren County, New York; Mathew Brady is known as “The Father of Photojournalism.” While a student of Samuel Morse and a friend of Louis Daguerre (inventor of the “Daguerreotype,” a method of photography that the image is developed straight onto a metal coated surface), in which he had met while under the study of Morse, Brady took up his interest in photography in the year of 1839, while only seventeen years of age. Brady took what he had learned from these two talented and intellectual men to America where he furthered his interest in the then-growing art of photography.

    Read More

  • Vik Muniz Photographs

    449 Words  | 1 Pages

    I observed a very unique series of photographs by Vik Muniz called Seeing is Believing. Vik Muniz’s images are not simply photography but are pictures of complicated pieces of art he has produced at earlier times. Utilizing an array of unorthodox materials including granulated sugar, chocolate syrup, sewing thread, cotton, wire, and soil Muniz first creates an image, sculpturally manipulates it and then photographs it. Muniz’s pictures include portraits, landscapes, x-rays, and historical images.

    Read More

  • The Dream World of Jerry Uelsmann

    1729 Words  | 4 Pages

    Johnson, Brooks. Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers on their Art.” New York: Aperture Foundation Inc., 2004. Print.

    Read More

  • Unseen Realities: Sewage Work and Health Risks

    518 Words  | 2 Pages

    Having such an image before our eyes, often we fail to recognize the message it is trying to display from a certain point of view. Through Clark’s statement, it is evident that a photograph holds a graphic message, which mirrors the representation of our way of thinking with the world sights, which therefore engages other

    Read More

  • Revolutionizing Cinematic Experience: Kubrick's Obsession with Sci-Fi

    1103 Words  | 3 Pages

    The trip Bowman (a blank Keir Dullea), work of the great Douglas Trumbull, was a result of using the slit-Can camera, an optical printer, photographing a cylinder moved slowly, decorated with pop-art designs and architecture . Actually, it recalcitrant than those who are never interested in forms of abstract expression feel deluded (in both directions), these images that today do not impress, and become unbearably

    Read More

  • The Mirror With A Memory Analysis

    417 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the chapter, “The Mirror with a Memory”, the authors, James Davidson and Mark Lytle, describe numerous things that evolved after the civil war, including the life of Jacob Riis, the immigration of new peoples in America, and the evolution of photography. The authors’ purpose in this chapter is to connect the numerous impacts photography had on the past as well as its bringing in today’s age.

    Read More

  • Photography: Annotated Bibliography

    2461 Words  | 5 Pages

    2 Gustavon, Todd. Camera: A History of Photography from daguerreotype to Digital. New York, NY: Sterling Publishing, 2009

    Read More

  • Daguerreotype-Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre

    1379 Words  | 3 Pages

    Prior to the invention of the daguerreotype, the Camera Obscura was the main optical instrument that was used to project images onto paper. The Camera Obscura was a device in the shape of a box that allowed light, which was being reflected from the images that the user was intending to capture, to enter through an opening at one end of the box to form an image on a surface and an artist would then trace the image to form the most accurate impression of an image at that peri...

    Read More

  • Should Photojournalism or Documentary Photography Be Considred Art?

    2303 Words  | 5 Pages

    Raeburn, John. A Staggering Revolution: A Cultural History of Thirties Photography. Chicago: University of Illinois, 2006. Print.

    Read More

  • Whether Photography Limits Understanding

    939 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sontag, Susan. "Essay | Photography Enhances Our Understanding of the World." BookRags. BookRags. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Michelangelo's Creation Of Adam

    1472 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the early 1400s, Italian engineer and architect, Filippo Brunelleschi, rediscovered the system of perspective as a mathematical technique to replicate depth and form within a picture plane. According to the principles, establishing one or more vanishing points can enable an artist to draw the parallels of an object to recede and converge, thus disappearing into a “distance”. In 1412, Brunelleschi demonstrated this technique to the public when he used a picture of the Florence Baptistery painted on a panel with a small hole in the centre.3 In his other hand, he held a mirror to reflect the painting itself, in which the reflected view seen through the hole depicted the correct perspective of the baptistery. It was confirmed that the image

    Read More

  • Photography in Advertising and its Effects on Society

    3724 Words  | 8 Pages

    As seen in paintings of battle scenes and portraits of wealthy Renaissance aristocracy, people have always strived to preserve and document their existence. The creation of photography was merely the logical continuum of human nature’s innate desire to preserve the past, as well as a necessary reaction to a world in a stage of dramatic and irreversible change. It is not a coincidence that photography arose in major industrial cities towards the end of the nineteenth century.

    Read More

  • Louis Daguerre: Capturing The Invention That Changed Photography

    1488 Words  | 3 Pages

    Photography is a part of almost everyone's everyday life whether it is through a smartphone, laptop, or professional camera. Before the late 1800s, though, even a simple picture was not possible. Although many people worked hard and put their ideas and inventions of new cameras in the world, Louis Daguerre is among one of the most important. Michael Hart, in his book, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, ranks Daguerre as the 47th most influential person in the world. This ranking is appropriate because of the many ways his invention influenced today's world. His technique was practical and widely used in the 1800s. Although his methods are different

    Read More

  • The Upper Paleolithic

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    Price, T. D., & Feinman, G. (2013). Images of the past. (7th ed., pp. 124-125). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

    Read More

  • Why Do People Watch Movies?

    774 Words  | 2 Pages

    If we go back beyond Lumière Brothers’ projection of their cinematography in Paris over Christmas 1895, which is too straightforward birth narration of cinema; ancient visual forms like Egyptian hieroglyphics or pre-cinematic technologies of image capture and projection, known as magic lanterns, employing a series of lenses and light sources, were early proof of humanity mesmerised by the play and tricks of light and shades.

    Read More

More about Pinhole Photography

Open Document