Playing With Pinholes

As part of an art photography course that I am taking to make impressionistic and, at times, hand-embellished artwork from photographs, we were given an assignment to make our own pinhole ‘lens’ for our digital cameras. When I told the instructor that I already had a pinhole lens that I had purchased, his response was that the one I had purchased was undoubtedly too perfect and that we were looking for imperfections. So off I went to manufacture my own pinhole lens per his instructions. The result is seen below.

My homemade pinhole ‘lens’.

But, as they say, the proof is in the pudding as to whether my home concoction was going to work, so a short photo walk was in order.

© Howard Grill

As it turns out for 5 bucks (to purchase a spare camera body cap) I made a pinhole lens which seems to function every bit as well as the one I had purchased for much more. Some interesting experiments may ensue. For example, I am told that a dual pinhole yields a result similar to multiple exposures. That remains to be tried!

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