Pinhole Photography, and it's affect on my yoga practice
As part of my Yoga Teacher Training at Octopus Garden Studio in Toronto, I was asked to make a short presentation on a book that had helped start me on my yoga journey. It proved to be an impossible task; so many influences had come together to put me where I was at that point. Some had been books, some films, some had been passing comments that were now long forgotten, as where their sources. So I settled on talking about the art of Pinhole Photography instead. Here's what I said.
Books have always passed through my hands quickly. Which of these many volumes set me on course for taking part in teacher training at Octopus Garden? Any guess of mine at this point in time would be a result of current bias and fanciful memory, and probably quite wrong to boot. So instead I’d like to talk about one of my many influences, pinhole photography.
Like yoga, pinhole photography has the capacity to encourage the practitioner to be present, mindful and to consider themselves part of a larger entity than just their own sense of self. I was turned onto the artform by a general interest in creativity, an urge to try to cultivate my own voice whilst curbing my sense of individuality, and by friends in the Medway art community who were into punk rock/DIY style creation during the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
“There is a beauty, simplicity and rawness in pinhole photography that modern technology struggles to match,” my friends Wolf Howard, Karl Farrer and Billy Childish would explain. “The limitations of a pinhole camera are its strengths. Despite these limitations though, the style is surprisingly easy to master. Follow the basic directions, invest yourself in the process and readily allow chance into your practice and within a month you can be producing stand-out work.”
This all sounded pretty smart to me at the age of 32. It appealed to my ego and unwillingness to grow up. Subconsciously I wanted to remain as special as any lucky child is made to feel and here was a method that might help. My travel photography and willingness to swim upstream had gained me a limited income and notoriety but now I interpreted my friends advice as saying that I could concentrate for a month and at the end of it be producing work that could hang next to images by Cartier Bresson, Mablethorpe or Bailey (or even Howard, Farrer and Childish). I’d just have to take care of choosing the subject matter and the camera; the process and the world would automatically add a sense of deep mystery, great skill and hidden truth for me. Brilliant.
It would be like walking into a yoga studio for the first time and, thanks to your magic pants, pulling an impressive handstand off without putting in any real work. Not especially honest or good for you but very hard to resist for me at the time.
There was also another reason why the art form appealed. Simply, the photos it produced seemed beautifully honest and as such they were a stark contrast to the confusion and fabrication I perceived all around.
The majority of people I lived among seemed to want to see, think and act in straight lines when all I could imagine was an all encompassing blur. Mentally it felt natural for my thoughts not to sleep in any one camp for long, and for my beliefs to resist hard boundaries. Physically I subscribed to the science that I was just a dense collection of atoms swirling around in a space made up of less dense atoms, and that any hard edges felt or seen were only hard because of my limited perception.
I wasn’t a great artist, a deep thinker or even a very kind person but I wanted to push myself to be better and taking up pinhole photography was partly an act of striving for honesty. It felt right to presume that if an artist was looking to portray their reality - and that is what I believed to be an artist’s job - then their default image would have to be blurry, veering off into straightness only in efforts to show altered states of mind, delusion, or the truth by other means that would likely need a lengthy chat label as explanation.
This may or may not be true, but it sounds a fair critique of what I thought at the time.
I’ll explain a little about pinhole photography. A traditional pinhole camera, or ‘Camera Obscura’ (Latin for ‘Dark Chamber’), can be made from any light proof container (mine was made from wood) that has a pinhole at one end and a piece of photographic paper facing the pinhole at the other. These cameras more often than not have no lens, viewfinder or light meter and a single exposure can take seconds, hours or days to make, depending on the light available.
In making an exposure the photographer decides on their subject then either sets up their tripod or finds a flat surface on which to stand the camera. They then feel the heat of the atmosphere and light on their forehead and neck and, engaging fully with previous experience and the current moment, decide how long each exposure will be.
After opening the shutter they step back to allow the world, or chance (or, something) to enter into the process.
Some photographers like to say they step forward to meet the world halfway. That’s a nice way of putting it, quite poetic. I don’t think it changes what happens at the moment of creation but it might change how one feels about the art as one practices it and the subject matter you think is worthy of your thoughts and motives.
The pinhole artform is commonly thought to ask the artist to embark on a relationship with an unquantifiable ‘thing’ - the world, an energy, chance, whatever.
It’s not particularly important at first whether you understand what it is you are working with, it’s said, only that you understand that it’s not just you who is making the images. That it’s not all your own work, that you have to share the credit for any success and offer thanks for it to something outside of yourself.
This is quite different from many other artforms which encourage the creator to say
“Look at MY work!” with perhaps a slight nod to human influences or the muse if they feel their words require modesty to aid digestion.
The pinhole photographer also has to embrace unpredictability as part of their creative process. For instance, they can open the shutter for a two minute exposure and after a minute a cloud might hide the sun, or an inquisitive person might walk in front of the camera, stoop to peer into the pinhole and block the light coming in, or a nervous policeman might approach and signal that this suspicious looking wooden box is not cool with them. In which case the photographer has to close their eyes, quickly feel the change of heat and light on their skin and then adjust the exposure times accordingly (or in the case of the policeman scenario, which happens quite often, you just shrug, close the shutter and get out of there before the situation develops).
A certain combination of temperature, direct sunlight or humidity may change the way the photographic paper reacts on the day. It may stick together in your storage bag, or pick up some of the oils from your skin, or even your thumbprints (a nice effect some art collectors say, as it has ‘original work’ written all over it). The same variables may change the power of the development chemicals. You can use maths and chemistry knowledge to work out what these changes may be, but for the majority of us who are not looking to dominate the world in the very male way that is so common (and destructive), we would see the wisdom in letting go and inviting the unknown in.
More importantly, the photographer learns that what starts out as an annoyance (“Arrgh, a cloud just covered the sun, that messes up my exposure!”) becomes a beautiful interaction with the world. A dance, you might say. You take the lead by deciding your exposure, the world adds a spin via weather or other conditions, the photographer reacts, the world may too. The dance then continues into the darkroom - which in my case was mostly a tent or hotel bathroom as I did most of my creative work whilst on the road - until the small image is complete and ready to try to introduce viewers to the world around them.
How funny my take on the process seems now I look back on it. On the one hand my ego was eager to step forward into the light produced by the admiration I felt I’d get by creating pleasant photos (“Wow, Dave, you’re such a deep, talented artist...”). On the other hand, I loved the honesty of the process and the fact that during the act of making each image my ego was going to be spoken too quite sternly by another part of myself, who would say something like,
“You are here but you have to behave and know your place. Move over from time to time and trust enough, become vulnerable enough, to let the world - or something else beyond your understanding - in.”
So you see, the artform could be said to encourage contemplation, meditation, trust and reflection. And for myself, you could also say that my practice played a huge part in bringing me to Canada, and eventually the Octopus Garden Yoga Centre.
I became proficient in the artform after several years and somewhat known as a producer of fine pinhole travel photography books and exhibitions. One day in 2013 a girl from Toronto was looking for creative inspiration online and found my work. We got talking via email and by 2015 were married and settled in Toronto. When things went terribly wrong before the end of that year I found myself feeling alone, foolish, betrayed, angry and bewildered. Part of my response was to try to put myself in situations of safety and learning with people who might be trusted, if I could heal sufficiently to do so. And this is how I stumbled upon the caring, generous, inquisitive and wise community that I have eventually found at Octopus Garden.
Like yoga, pinhole photography has the capacity to encourage the practitioner to be present, mindful and to consider themselves part of a larger entity than just their own sense of self. I was turned onto the artform by a general interest in creativity, an urge to try to cultivate my own voice whilst curbing my sense of individuality, and by friends in the Medway art community who were into punk rock/DIY style creation during the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
“There is a beauty, simplicity and rawness in pinhole photography that modern technology struggles to match,” my friends Wolf Howard, Karl Farrer and Billy Childish would explain. “The limitations of a pinhole camera are its strengths. Despite these limitations though, the style is surprisingly easy to master. Follow the basic directions, invest yourself in the process and readily allow chance into your practice and within a month you can be producing stand-out work.”
This all sounded pretty smart to me at the age of 32. It appealed to my ego and unwillingness to grow up. Subconsciously I wanted to remain as special as any lucky child is made to feel and here was a method that might help. My travel photography and willingness to swim upstream had gained me a limited income and notoriety but now I interpreted my friends advice as saying that I could concentrate for a month and at the end of it be producing work that could hang next to images by Cartier Bresson, Mablethorpe or Bailey (or even Howard, Farrer and Childish). I’d just have to take care of choosing the subject matter and the camera; the process and the world would automatically add a sense of deep mystery, great skill and hidden truth for me. Brilliant.
It would be like walking into a yoga studio for the first time and, thanks to your magic pants, pulling an impressive handstand off without putting in any real work. Not especially honest or good for you but very hard to resist for me at the time.
Angkor Wat, Cambodia - 10 minute exposure
There was also another reason why the art form appealed. Simply, the photos it produced seemed beautifully honest and as such they were a stark contrast to the confusion and fabrication I perceived all around.
The majority of people I lived among seemed to want to see, think and act in straight lines when all I could imagine was an all encompassing blur. Mentally it felt natural for my thoughts not to sleep in any one camp for long, and for my beliefs to resist hard boundaries. Physically I subscribed to the science that I was just a dense collection of atoms swirling around in a space made up of less dense atoms, and that any hard edges felt or seen were only hard because of my limited perception.
I wasn’t a great artist, a deep thinker or even a very kind person but I wanted to push myself to be better and taking up pinhole photography was partly an act of striving for honesty. It felt right to presume that if an artist was looking to portray their reality - and that is what I believed to be an artist’s job - then their default image would have to be blurry, veering off into straightness only in efforts to show altered states of mind, delusion, or the truth by other means that would likely need a lengthy chat label as explanation.
This may or may not be true, but it sounds a fair critique of what I thought at the time.
Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur - 90 second exposure
I’ll explain a little about pinhole photography. A traditional pinhole camera, or ‘Camera Obscura’ (Latin for ‘Dark Chamber’), can be made from any light proof container (mine was made from wood) that has a pinhole at one end and a piece of photographic paper facing the pinhole at the other. These cameras more often than not have no lens, viewfinder or light meter and a single exposure can take seconds, hours or days to make, depending on the light available.
In making an exposure the photographer decides on their subject then either sets up their tripod or finds a flat surface on which to stand the camera. They then feel the heat of the atmosphere and light on their forehead and neck and, engaging fully with previous experience and the current moment, decide how long each exposure will be.
After opening the shutter they step back to allow the world, or chance (or, something) to enter into the process.
Some photographers like to say they step forward to meet the world halfway. That’s a nice way of putting it, quite poetic. I don’t think it changes what happens at the moment of creation but it might change how one feels about the art as one practices it and the subject matter you think is worthy of your thoughts and motives.
The pinhole artform is commonly thought to ask the artist to embark on a relationship with an unquantifiable ‘thing’ - the world, an energy, chance, whatever.
It’s not particularly important at first whether you understand what it is you are working with, it’s said, only that you understand that it’s not just you who is making the images. That it’s not all your own work, that you have to share the credit for any success and offer thanks for it to something outside of yourself.
Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka - 4 minute exposure
Student in mosque, Delhi, India - 3 minute exposure
Sahara, Egypt - 15 second exposure
John, Malawi - 2 minute exposure
This is quite different from many other artforms which encourage the creator to say
“Look at MY work!” with perhaps a slight nod to human influences or the muse if they feel their words require modesty to aid digestion.
The pinhole photographer also has to embrace unpredictability as part of their creative process. For instance, they can open the shutter for a two minute exposure and after a minute a cloud might hide the sun, or an inquisitive person might walk in front of the camera, stoop to peer into the pinhole and block the light coming in, or a nervous policeman might approach and signal that this suspicious looking wooden box is not cool with them. In which case the photographer has to close their eyes, quickly feel the change of heat and light on their skin and then adjust the exposure times accordingly (or in the case of the policeman scenario, which happens quite often, you just shrug, close the shutter and get out of there before the situation develops).
A certain combination of temperature, direct sunlight or humidity may change the way the photographic paper reacts on the day. It may stick together in your storage bag, or pick up some of the oils from your skin, or even your thumbprints (a nice effect some art collectors say, as it has ‘original work’ written all over it). The same variables may change the power of the development chemicals. You can use maths and chemistry knowledge to work out what these changes may be, but for the majority of us who are not looking to dominate the world in the very male way that is so common (and destructive), we would see the wisdom in letting go and inviting the unknown in.
Burma Railroad with intentional thumbprint signature, Thailand
More importantly, the photographer learns that what starts out as an annoyance (“Arrgh, a cloud just covered the sun, that messes up my exposure!”) becomes a beautiful interaction with the world. A dance, you might say. You take the lead by deciding your exposure, the world adds a spin via weather or other conditions, the photographer reacts, the world may too. The dance then continues into the darkroom - which in my case was mostly a tent or hotel bathroom as I did most of my creative work whilst on the road - until the small image is complete and ready to try to introduce viewers to the world around them.
Crowds approaching Angkor Wat, Cambodia - 30 second exposure
How funny my take on the process seems now I look back on it. On the one hand my ego was eager to step forward into the light produced by the admiration I felt I’d get by creating pleasant photos (“Wow, Dave, you’re such a deep, talented artist...”). On the other hand, I loved the honesty of the process and the fact that during the act of making each image my ego was going to be spoken too quite sternly by another part of myself, who would say something like,
“You are here but you have to behave and know your place. Move over from time to time and trust enough, become vulnerable enough, to let the world - or something else beyond your understanding - in.”
So you see, the artform could be said to encourage contemplation, meditation, trust and reflection. And for myself, you could also say that my practice played a huge part in bringing me to Canada, and eventually the Octopus Garden Yoga Centre.
I became proficient in the artform after several years and somewhat known as a producer of fine pinhole travel photography books and exhibitions. One day in 2013 a girl from Toronto was looking for creative inspiration online and found my work. We got talking via email and by 2015 were married and settled in Toronto. When things went terribly wrong before the end of that year I found myself feeling alone, foolish, betrayed, angry and bewildered. Part of my response was to try to put myself in situations of safety and learning with people who might be trusted, if I could heal sufficiently to do so. And this is how I stumbled upon the caring, generous, inquisitive and wise community that I have eventually found at Octopus Garden.
