It is the end of the first decade of the 21st century and yet pinhole photography, a very old method, are held more and more often.

Articles on the subject are being published in professional magazines and experts discuss the topic on the radio. What is more, this method invented long before the electrification of towns and villages is propagated by one of Jaworzno III Power Plant employees - Krzysztof Sowa, Communication Department worker and personally my fellow photographer amateur. I decided to learn more about this method and its origins from Krzysztof and our mutual friend Jakub Kaszuba.

On my way here I was listening to the latest Raz Dwa Trzy song and heard that ‘the horizon is the combination of blue and a scrap of land’. Having this in mind what is the pinhole photography?

K.S. After such an introduction I should ask for a different set of questions but I will try to answer in your style. Pinhole photography is a combination of tradition and imagination. So now I will ask for a different set of answers.

J.K. Let me help you. It is tradition because it was Leonardo da Vinci who invented a device used to make images. It is called Camera Obscura, a box with a hole drilled in one of the sides. If da Vinci had invented photosensitive paper and a fixative the original name for photography should have been ‘vincitypia’. But a method of image fixing was popularized several hundreds years later by M. Daguerre this is why photography used to be called ‘daguerrotype’.

K.S. Imagination is indispensible as taking a photo by means of a pinhole camera you never know what to expect. You have neither a telescopic site or a display. You put your box on the ground, tree-trunk, tripod and you can never be sure what your ‘camera’ will photograph. You have to imagine this. Taking into account long exposure time, you will be more than surprised what your pinhole captured.

So why torture oneself so much? I take my ‘camera obscura’ equipped with a lens which reduces spherical aberration instead of the pinhole, which at the back has a matrix with sensitivity so as to enable me exposing the photography in split of a second and I will see the effect on the display and this effect will not be a surprise to me.

J.K. Exactly – modern ‘camera obscura’ and its perfection kill the imagination in us. Who ponders upon the final effect while taking a digital photo it is obvious it will be satisfactory. I used the term ‘photography’ on purpose – as a digital camera is a device which for majority of people is used to capture the real image of the world. And using the pinhole activates imagination and it is thye first step towards the created image, capturing our vision of the world and creating photography. And this id the first advantage of pinhole photography.

K.S. and the second pro – there is no spherical aberration in case of pinhole camera (distortions, barrel effect at the edges of the image created by a lens). What we deal with here is a pure, undistorted perspective. There are indeed distortions but they are caused by the material shape used to make our camera or by the shape and manner the pinhole was made. But these are purposeful and intended moves of the photographer.

J.K. Third advantage is the focus depth. Autofocus in the pinhole camera is useless, here we can have the focus ranging from zero to infinity. The prerequisite to obtain correct focus is maintenance of appropriate proportions between the pinhole diameter and its distance from the photosensitive material. Fourth advantage is softness of the image. The more uneven edges of the pinhole the softer and more blurred the image. An perfect circle of the pinhole with sharp edges will produce an image comparable to the quality you can have in case of a photo taken by high-quality digital camera.

If I wanted to switch to pinhole photography today, what should I start with?

K.S. From making your own pinhole camera. You start with the body i.e. selecting a tight can or box. You measure the distance between the wall you want to place your pinhole in and the wall you want to have your photosensitive camera. You choose the pinhole diameter for this distance. The longer the distance the bigger the pinhole diameter. In practice, you make a big hole in one wall into which we fit a part with a pinhole already made. Cling foil or yogurt cup bottom are very popular for this purpose. The hole can by made with a pin and then we smoothen the other side of the material with fine paper sand. The bodies can be very different. The biggest ones yet still mobile can be made of shipping containers fitted on the truck tractor or an old freezer wagon. Those static ones are for example: a rented apartment with a view of interest to us. We paint the window black and scratch a hole of appropriate size. In this case a digital camera can help us to take a photo of the captured image.

Yes but what about the photosensitive material?

J.K. Yopu can use any type of photosensitive material available on the market. In case on transparent negative materials the exposure times will be shorter from several seconds to several minutes. In case of positive materials (tradition papers used in enlargers) require very long exposure times up to a few months.

K.S. we want to apply such long-term exposure in our latest project we are going to do in Jaworzno and on site of our power plants. We will place our pinhole camera in front of characteristic buildings in the city and in the power plants and the exposure will last from March till August. The paper will capture the outlines of the buildings as well as the sun path. On cloudless days the sun trace will be brighter and darker on cloudy days. This way we will record the way the sun moves above Jaworzno and our power plants.

How long have you had this pinhole hobby?

J.K. in my case for at least 8 years. My passion towards this type of photography was evoked by Jakub Byrczek the founder of Szkoła Widzenia.

K.S. I caught it from Kuba few months after that.

What are your achievements?

K.S. and J.K. We took part in over a dozen of exhibitions both individual and group ones. We participated in the 1st and 2nd Polish Pinhole Photography Festival. The 3rd one which is World Festival we are the co-organizers. We can humbly say that in the world of the pinhole fans we are well recognized.

Make sure you have time for another interview in September to discuss your project in Jaworzno. And for now thank you for the interview.

Wojtek Piechocki