what's holy i: beer can pinhole photograph of norwich anglican cathedral
what's holy ii beer can camera of Norwich Anglican Cathedral, Norfolk
what's holy iii: Peter hungate church in Norwich, beer can pinhole, 2020
what's holy iv: cromer church beer can pinhole photograph
what's holy v: Norwich city hall, home made beer can pin hole photograph, 2020
ferry: beer can pinhole photograph of Pulls Ferry, Norwich Norfolk, 2020
holydays: beer can pinhole photograph, Cromer pier, 2020
holydays ii: cromer pier, beer can pinhole, 2020
boundaries: cromer street, pinhole photograph, 2020, Norfolk
lost head: the magic of art - Elisabeth Frink's work at the uea, Norwich, 2020
Alternative photographic processes - pinhole
When 2020 heralded the beginning of the end of my career in social photography, I welcomed the opportunity to explore alternative processes in photography. I still had lots of photographic papers from my art school days, and although it was 20 years out of date it still produced some great images. I made my own cameras from various tins, cans and boxes and took to the streets of Norwich & Cromer for a change of scene from the lanes and villages of my native Norfolk.
It felt good to be using basic practices, ones where you have to delay gratification - no instant image on the back of these tin can cameras. They rely on the sun’s light hitting light-sensitive photographic paper for goodness-knows-how-long (in my own case).
I’d keep my exposures in the dark until I had a good collection to develop in a darkened room in my home to watch the magic of good old fashioned dark room wet processing.
After 20 years of striving for the perfect exposures in my work, the perfect smiles and the perfect light and focus, it feels good to become more experimental again. I hope you enjoy these. This project kept me entertained between those lockdowns. I kept asking myself throughout this project: who do we think we are? why am I using chemicals to develop prints? what can I do that doesn’t involve leaving a trail of chemicals?