Process

I created my pinhole camera by using a container that can be made light-proof. In my case, a small orange box that once packaged a phone. I opened up the box and painted three coats of black on the inside. Black must be used as it absorbs the light that will enter the box; other colours simply bounce the light. Once the paint had dried, I drew a postage stamp sized square on the outside of the box in the centre and then used a thin blade to cut this shape out of the box. Once this shape was cut, I gaffer taped a larger square sized piece of tin foil on the inside of the square I cut out in the box. Once the visible piece of tin foil is placed over the hole inside the box, I made small, pin sized hole in the tin foil, hence the name pinhole camera. I then closed the box and put black masking tape over parts of the box that light could travel through, but left the option of opening the box in order to place photographic paper on the inside. After these steps, I took my pinhole camera into the dark room to place photographic paper inside, I prepared two small squares of double sided gaffer tape and placed them on the inside of my box on the surface opposite the pinhole I created. I then placed a small sheet of photographic paper a little under the length of the side of the box. I placed this paper with the shiny side facing the pinhole, as this is where the image gets printed by the light that gets in the box through the hole. Once the paper was placed securely, I then sealed the box and taped it up to ensure it was light proof and then took it out. The length of the box divided by 0.8 gives you the F-stop, which determines how long your box needs to be exposed to light for. I ensured the pinhole is covered by a re-sealable gaffer tape cover before I was ready to take my photo, If you do not do this, the photographic paper will be exposed too early and will go black due to over exposure. The amount of time needed for exposure is a lot less outside then in, due to the brightness of the sun obviously being a lot stronger outside. Once I had set down my pinhole camera for the amount of exposure time needed, I re-sealed the hole and took it back up to the dark room for developing. Once in the dark room, I untaped my box and opened it up to remove the photographic paper for developing. I placed the photo into an assortment of developing chemicals before placing it through a dryer. I then scanned my images using a flatbed scanner and placed them on to a USB in order to invert them on photoshop and crop and neaten up the original scanned image, which feautred all three images in one. I then placed them on this blog.