At Len’s Journal, we are particularly excited by those photographers who experiment and make their photographic art a little differently. Len recently started his Abstract Lens online workshop which has introduced me to Jim Love and his experiments with pinhole cameras. The first task required of the students was to post their ideas for a project, the first one I saw was Jim’s. How amazing! The image you see here is the result of him making his own pinhole camera from a beer can and leaving it in a location for a long period of time. Here, you can see the sun as it repeatedly makes its way across the sky. Jim cites a few issues with this method, the most pressing being that he currently cannot retrieve his homemade cameras that are sitting on the roof of his local town hall building due to lockdown. Other issues include 70% of his cameras being stolen or vandalised before he can get the film and ants eating the emulsion, although this certainly adds a layer of intrigue that would otherwise not be present and for me it makes for a more compelling image. If you are interested in this type of photography, Jim has helpfully shared this reference ‘how to’ video from Justin Quinnell of www.pinholephotography.org - I am very tempted to give this a go!

Jim’s top tip for pinhole photography is “adding a foreground, tree branch etc. adds to the composition”.

Thank you Jim, for sharing your work with us.

Photograph published with permission. Photograph copyright © Jim Love 2021

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