The Camera Obscura, Latin for "dark room", is a visual phenomena observed by Aristotle in the 4th century B.C. as well as by Mo-Ti, a Chinese philosopher a century later. If a small pinhole is placed opposite a blank wall in a completely darkened room, a faint image of the outside scene will be projected onto the interior wall. The resulting image is inverted by the light rays outside passing through the tiny hole.
In 1490 Leonardo Da Vinci described two similar experiments with a Camera Obscura in his notebooks.
A pinhole camera operates on the same simple optical principle as the Camera Obscura. The "camera" can be virtually any object, from a biscuit tin to sophisticated wooden and brass homemade boxes. Pinhole cameras are generally lensless, and usually expose film or photographic paper to create an image by the light that enters through the pinhole. With the recent availability of Digital SLR cameras, it has become possible to convert a spare plastic body cap (usually used to protect the camera body when the lens is removed) into a custom pinhole and essentially use that as a "lens" making it a "Digital Pinhole Camera".
The ability to use such a low-tech front end (a pinhole) with a high-tech back end (a digital SLR) is a fascinating creative dichotomy.
Recently I have been experimenting with various unconventional "lenses" that are placed in front, or attached to the pinhole body cap. They include assorted bottle glasses, discarded plastics, and even various glass and plastic magnifiers.
The Digital camera with its high pixel resolution and the ability to immediately see the image that I have taken enables me to rapidly adjust exposure settings and experiment with light, space, and subject matter in a manner that was impossible until now. The nature of the pinhole optics creates images with unique depth of field and a pleasing, evocative, soft-focus glow. My experiments with various "trash lenses" in conjunction with a simple pinhole has led to a fascination with how light reflects and refracts, sometimes totally unexpectedly, through different materials.
The current direction of higher and higher mega-pixel resolution and image clarity in the world of contemporary photography is a direct antithesis to the more impressionistic approach of these images.
I have become fascinated with the concept of lenses or "windows" that are placed between the subject and the camera, between the object and the viewer, and between the viewer and the artist. How do these filter and distort the image? What effects occur when there are multiple "windows"? When happens when there are none? For me, the process is about a disconnect between the artist and the subject, and between the image and the viewer, also, about how distortion, and the reprocessing of visual information affect this disconnect.
