Pinhole photography

I’ve been shooting pinhole photographs since 2010. I was initially drawn to long exposure after viewing Louis Daguerre’s 1838 Boulevard du Temple. I was fascinated that in a street scene teeming with people, the only human activity captured was an instance of labour—a bootblack shining a customer’s shoes. “Background” workers are so often rendered invisible in visual media, and this got me wondering whether I could capture workers using the plastic Holga pinhole camera that had recently been gifted to me.

So I embarked on a project to explore that very question, shooting black and white long exposure pinhole photographs in McDonald’s, a train station, an airport, a lecture theatre and more. The photos weren’t very interesting, unfortunately. But I kept working with the camera—which is a lovely, light-weight, highly portable instrument that takes medium format film, and I am mainly shooting in colour these days. Read my statements on the sub pages to learn more about why I work with long exposure to explore memory, place and portraiture.