Fresher's Week - An introduction to pinhole photography

On the Thursday of Fresher's Week we had our first Image Lab session - an introduction to pinhole photography. I found a website on pinhole photography which I found was very interesting to read, which had many interesting facts, such as the history of pinhole cameras and the theory behind them. It made the process of building one sound very easy and simple, so I was looking forward to learning how to build one. Justin Quinnell did a presentation on pinhole photography, how pinhole cameras work and showed us some images as examples, both his own and those of other photographers. 


Examples of Justin Quinnells Work:

Source: http://jakechapline.blogspot.com/2010/11/justin-quinnell-pinhole-extraordinaire.html

Source: http://joshuateo.blogspot.com/2007/10/thiswassupposedtobeaseriousblog.html

Source: http://dustandlust.blogspot.com/2011/01/justin-quinnell.html

Examples of Mary Carr-Chaisson's work:

Source for both: http://www.pinholephotogallery.com/index.htm

We were working in groups, and Justin taught us how to build our own pinhole cameras out of beer cans, which was really easy. We went outside to take the first photos under his supervision, and he showed us how to develop the images in the darkroom afterwards. My first photo did not work out because the pinhole was slightly covered, but all the other photos I took afterwards turned out quite well.

My pinhole camera! The pen works as a stabilizer  to stop it from moving about when taking a photo,  the small black tape covers the shutter and the big black tape at the top of the can makes sure that no light can come in and ruin your paper. You take it off to refill the camera.

First try.. Didn't work out that well!

We were asked to take more photos throughout the next week, and we were told that we would be putting up an exhibition with our results the week after.
I really enjoyed taking the first few images, but was looking forward to taking photos of things that I had chosen, and not him. I didn't get into it right away but found it very addictive once I had.