For my yearlong project I chose to study and learn in depth about pinhole photography and the developing of black and white prints. I learned about what happenschemically throughout the entire process of exposing and developing the photo paper. Ialso experimented taking photographs in different settings and using different techniquesto develop and process them. My goal during the year was to learn about the history of pinhole photography and to understand in depth the way the pinhole camera works.The pinhole camera is the most simple and the oldest of all cameras. It utilizesthe ancient principle of the Camera Obscura (Latin: Camera: box – Obscura: dark). The
Camera Obscura is a box or frame where in a natural process occurs that causes an imageto be reversed when it passes through a small hole or aperture in the front of the cameraobscura. The pinhole camera also uses the relatively modern principles of photographicdeveloping and photographic paper. Camera Obscuras were first used in the MiddleAges. Artists used them to project images onto paper or canvas which the artist wouldthen trace. The problem was no one could figure out how to make the flitting image of the camera obscura permanent, that is permanent by some other means than an artist’s brush or pencil. People lingered with this problem until Joseph Nicephore Niepce, ascientist philosopher from the 1800s, discovered a way to permanently imprint the image.He used a process very similar to the process we use today to create what he calledheliographs (Latin, helio: sun, graph: writing). The way the Camera Obscura worksis by light inversion. The colours of an object are all reflections of thelight that is not absorbed by theobject; these reflections enter theaperture of the camera obscura andare inverted (see diagram for explanation). However, by the timethe image reaches the projectionsurface, the image is completelyreversed because it is reflection and it has passed through the aperture in such a way.The pinhole camera is a Camera Obscura loaded with photographic paper. Themost common form of paper used today is composed of silver halide crystals suspendedin a resin and gelatin emulsion. This creates a gel like substance that is spread on either plastic or paper backing. When the emulsion is exposed to light, the silver halide crystalschange chemically. The exposed crystals will vary in darkness when developed because
the crystals were exposed to light progressively. This will create a picture ranging incolour from cold blue-black to a dark-brown-almost-black. This creates the coloursfound in a black and white photograph.For the image to be visible to the human eye it has to be put through a developing process in which the exposed photo paper is run through three chemical baths. The firststep in that process is the developer. The developer is a chemical reducing agent thatchanges the exposed silver halide particles into visible metallic silver crystals ranging incolor from cold blue to dark brown. The next step is a stop bath. The stop bath is an acid bath that neutralizes the developer and stops the developing process. The stop bath is notnecessary in the developing process but it is used to prolong the life of the fixer, the nextchemical in the process. The fixer is the final chemical in the developing process. Itremoves all the unexposed silver halidecrystals leaving only the visible metallicsilver particles, thus creating a photographthat can no longer be affected when exposed.When the negative has gone throughthis process, it is still a negative and, if desired, can be printed onto another piece of photo paper. The positive is created by placing the negative on top of a piece of unexposed photo paper. Then a piece of glass is placed on top of that to make sure that the two pieces of the paper are firmly pressedtogether. Then the papers are exposed to light for a certain amountof time depending on how dense the image is. This projects a positive of the negative onto the now exposed piece of photo paper. The positive now hasto be developed and THEN you have your finished photograph.Though it is a slow and labor-intensive process, taking and developing pictures isextremely rewarding and has many advantages. One of the most prominent advantages to
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The Pinhole Camera
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Yeah thanks but I still prefer the Nikon D5000 DSLR http://bit.ly/cfwcVt :P