DAVIS PUBLICATIONS EXHIBITOR SHOWCASE WORKSHOP

Making A Pinhole Camera

Experience the art of pinhole cameras! Create a one-of-a-kind long exposure pinhole
camera that requires no darkroom processing. Easily adaptable for kindergarten
through college and beyond, this project uses readily available materials.

Author: Nicole Croy. Ms. Croy teaches high-school photography at Carroll High School in Fort Wayne,
Indiana. She is a contributing writer for Focus On Photography, 2nd Edition. Nicole.Croy@yahoo.com

DAVISART.COM | CONTACTUS@DAVISART.COM | PHONE 800.533.2847 | FAX 508.753.3834

 DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING
A PINHOLE CAMERA
Making a Long-Exposure Pinhole Camera
1. Locate a light-tight metal or hard plastic container. Paint

e
the inside black to keep any and all light from reflecting.

ol
ee

H
dl

b
e
Drill (or cut) a ¼"-square sub-hole that you will eventually

Su
H
ol
tape your pinhole over.

e
2. Using the smallest size needle that you can find, gently
push a hole through a ½"-square piece of aluminum can
You may need to sand the bur on the backside of the
aluminum if it is rough where the needle poked through.

3. Tape the piece of aluminum over the sub-hole of your

light-tight container. Make sure the pinhole is in the
center of your sub-hole. Use electric tape so light does This is what your Pinhole Camera should look like once complete.
not get through. Use a small piece of electrical tape as The larger hole is the sub hole that was drilled. The center is a needle
the shutter/lens cap over the pinhole. hole punched into a piece of aluminum pop can with a needle hole!

4. Now you are ready to load your camera with photo

graphic paper. Cut a piece that fits nicely inside your
camera. To ensure that your paper doesn’t fall forward,
use a small piece of tape rolled up behind your photo
paper to keep it in place.

5. I would suggest that you use electrical tape to hold down

the lid on your container.

6. You are now ready to make your long exposure. I suggest

that you tape your pinhole camera into its location so it
doesn’t move. The camera must remain stationary for the
duration of the exposure.

7. Working in subdued light, scan your pinhole image into

the computer. You basically have one shot at this due to
the intensity of the light of the scanner (which will start
to alter to image immediately). Scan at a high resolution
such as 1200 dpi. This is how the photographic This I how the finished
paper should look when you piece should look once it is
open your little tin camera. scanned, inverted, and flipped
8. Once your image is scanned, your image needs to be
The image is seen as a nega- the correct way. No other
inverted and flipped horizontal. You can alter color/ tive (whites are black, and editing was done.
contrast/levels as you see fit. blacks are white).

Author: Nicole Croy. Ms. Croy teaches high-school photography at Carroll High School in Fort Wayne,
Indiana. She is a contributing writer for Focus On Photography, 2nd Edition. Nicole.Croy@yahoo.com

DAVISART.COM | CONTACTUS@DAVISART.COM | PHONE 800.533.2847 | FAX 508.753.3834

 THE CAMERA OBSCURA &
PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHY
Nicole Croy

O
ne of the most interesting by a glass lens, but they have a special The Pinhole Process
facts about photography is look all their own that is quite beau- Learning how to construct every part
that cameras and lenses were tiful. Pinhole cameras have a nearly of the pinhole camera and analyzing
invented hundreds of years universal depth of field; virtually the resulting images will give your
before an image was ever recorded. everything is in focus all the time. students an in-depth knowledge of the
The first camera was called the “cam- Making a pinhole camera is simple: history of photography.
era obscura.” This device was used Take a light-tight container and poke 1. Make sure that the chosen con-
in astronomy and, when a lens was a small hole in it to let light through. tainer is light-tight. If the inside is
added, as a drawing tool. It works bright in color, paint it black so that
because light travels in a straight line, light doesn’t reflect off the surface.
and when light rays are reflected from Pinhole cameras have a 2. Cut (for papier-mâché or plastic) or
a subject through a small hole in thin drill (for metal or wood) a sub-hole
nearly universal depth of on the side of the container where
material, these rays cross and are pro-
jected upside-down. field; virtually everything you want to place the pinhole. The
is in focus all the time. sub-hole should be ¼” and centered
Camera Concepts on the side of the box.
The simple pinhole camera doesn’t 3. Carefully cut a 1” square of alumi-
use a lens. Instead it has a thin sheet That light enters the hole and an num from a can. Using a needle,
of metal with a tiny hole in it that image is captured on photographic push a tiny hole through the center
projects an image as a glass lens paper or film. The film is then pro- of the aluminum. Push only the tip
would. The images made by a pinhole cessed in a darkroom using chemicals of the needle through, which will
camera aren’t as sharp as those made that reveal the image as a negative. allow for the smallest possible hole.

SCHOOLARTS MAGAZINE February 2017 SCHOOLARTSMAGAZINE.COM 1

 The smaller the hole, the greater paper in a darkroom. The images will down and backwards. Point out how
the depth of field. If the hole creates be “negatives,” which means that this affects the text on clothing or
a slight burr on the back side of the values will be reversed—blacks will signs. Once students have processed
aluminum, use sandpaper to smooth be white and whites will be black. At their negatives, they can scan their
it away. This becomes the lens. this point, they’ll need to evaluate images into a computer to invert
4. Using black electrical tape, tape the their exposure time. If their images them; blacks become white and the
pinhole lens over the sub-hole on are too light, they need to add time whites become black—“positives.”
the inside of the container. Be sure to their exposures. If their images are
to tape the aluminum down on all too dark, they need to subtract time Patience—Practice!
four sides, using slight pressure to from their exposures. Students will need lots of patience
avoid light leaks below the tape. This chart gives students a starting when first shooting with pinhole
5. Place another piece of electrical point with exposure time. The deeper cameras. Their exposures will vary
tape over the outside of the pinhole the box, the longer it takes to expose with the amount of light outside, the
to act as your shutter. Once you the paper: direction in which they shoot, and
are ready to shoot, remove the tape the time of day. They should start by
for your desired exposure time and photographing outside on a sunny day
then reapply it. Depth of Box Exposure Time with the initial exposure time. Make
After students have successfully sure they photograph around the same
1" 1 second
created their own pinhole cameras, time each day until they understand
they can begin loading photographic 3" 3 seconds their exposure times.
paper into them (start with paper 5" 6 seconds
before trying film—you get results 10" 30 seconds Nicole Croy teaches high-school photogra-
fast and it’s less expensive). phy at Carroll High School in Fort Wayne,
Indiana.

Processing Photographic Paper Exposure Time This lesson is adapted from the textbook
Once an exposure is made, students The images will be projected inside Focus on Photography (available from
will need to process their photographic of students’ pinhole cameras upside- Davis Publications) by Hermon Joyner
and Kathleen Monaghan.

SCHOOLARTS MAGAZINE February 2017

 Nicole Croy

P
inhole cameras are my obses-
sion. I am elated by the fact that
I can build my very own working
camera with just a few common
supplies from my artroom. I began by
making the basic pinhole camera from
a cardboard box (see “The Camera
Obscura and Pinhole Photography”
from last month’s issue), and then
progressed to metal containers. I’ve
explored cylindrical (as well as half
cylindrical) containers, and then was
inspired to build cameras that could
shoot 360 degrees with a multiple lens.
I progressed by building a camera
made from a real box truck, and have
recently landed in the extreme long
exposure category. In the past year
I have created more than 300 long
exposure pinhole cameras that allow
me to record the sun’s light trails
across the sky for months at a time.

Beyond the Basic Pinhole

This long-exposure pinhole project
allows for your students to take the
basic pinhole camera a step further
than a few second’s exposure and
record for a longer amount of time.
This is the next step in making your
“standard” pinhole images or pinhole
assignment into something com-
pletely mind-blowing.
For this project, the basic pinhole
camera is constructed. Black-and-
white darkroom photographic paper

THE is placed inside of the camera. It is

LONG
important that whatever location you
choose, the camera remain stationary

This is the next step in

making your “standard”
pinhole assignment into

EXPOSURE something completely

mind-blowing.

PINHOLE PROJECT and taped to an object for the dura-

tion of the exposure (I tend to tape my
pinhole cameras to metal posts and
trees, out of by passers’ view). The
cameras should be left to expose from
anywhere between two days and 240
days! The longer the exposure, the

SCHOOLARTS MAGAZINE March 2017

more light trails from the sun you will
record. Due to this extremely long
exposure, moving objects such as cars
and people become obsolete, and water
becomes very still and flattens out.

Scanning the Image

This is where you ask, “Isn’t the paper
completely over-exposed?” My answer
is “Yes, you are right!” Your paper is
completely over-exposed and if you
were to place it in a tray of developer
it would turn completely black. Once
the pinhole lens is closed and the
camera is taken down, the image will
need to be scanned into a computer
and will essentially become your orig-
inal file, no darkroom required.
The brand of photographic paper,
the type of paper (fiber-based or resin-
coated), the age of the paper, the sur-
face finish of the paper, as well as the
weather all play into the color of your
image once removed from the pinhole
camera. Mysterious colors including
reds, greens, blues, etc., appear from
the black-and-white photo paper.
Your image on the photo paper will
be a “negative,” so you will need to
invert it to make it a positive image.
Scan your photo paper in subdued
light so that the paper gets minimal
additional exposure to light. Once
the light of the scanner bed hits your
photo paper, it alters the papers color
(so no pressure, you essentially have
one shot at this).

Making a Long Exposure Pinhole

Camera
1. Locate a light-tight metal or hard
plastic container. Paint the inside
black to keep any and all light from
reflecting. Drill (or cut) a ¼ x ¼" container. Make sure the pinhole is paper to keep it in place. I would sug-
sub hole that you will eventually in the center of your sub hole. Use gest that you use electrical tape to hold
tape your pinhole over. electric tape so light does not get down the lid down on your container.
2. Using the smallest size needle through. Use a small piece of elec- You are now ready to make your
that you can find, gently push the trical tape as the shutter/lens cap long exposure. I suggest that you tape
needle through a ½ x ½" piece of over the pinhole. your pinhole camera into its location
aluminum can. You may need to Now you are ready to load your so it doesn’t move. The camera must
sand the bur on the backside of the camera with photographic paper. Cut remain stationary for the duration of
aluminum if it is rough where the a piece that fits nicely inside of your the exposure.
needle poked through. camera. To ensure that your paper
3. Tape the piece of aluminum over doesn’t fall forward, use a small piece Nicole Croy teaches high-school pho-
the sub hole of your light-tight of tape rolled up behind your photo tography at Carroll High School in Fort
Wayne, Indiana.

SCHOOLARTS MAGAZINE March 2017