cameras from Without Lenses

Camera Roundup

Erin Malone — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:52:25 GMT

120mm Original Pinhole Blender,
from Pinhole Blender

One of the great things about the lensless community, is the passion so many people have for not only making images, but for making cameras as well. It appeals to the left-brain—more architectural—side of the discipline. For those of us who are not that technical or handy, there are a few people who share their passion for making cameras with the rest of us who are not so technical.

The handful of commercial camera-making ventures out there, are generally small endeavors—often the outgrowth of personal passion. They persevere despite the world pushing a digital agenda.

Without Lenses was curious about how many of these companies got started and what they think the future of pinholing looks like. We spoke through email with Nancy Spencer and Eric Renner of Pinhole Resource, Chris Peregoy of Pinhole Blender and Jim Kosinski who makes the Merlin Paintcan Camera and asked them each a few questions. The makers of the Zero Image declined to comment for this article.

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The Leonardo

We were lucky to catch up with Eric Renner and Nancy Spencer, proprieters of the Pinhole Resource and former publishers of the Pinhole Journal. Eric and Nancy make the Leonardo pinhole camera and their website store is one of the only places to find a variety of interesting and unusual pinhole paraphernalia, including cameras, pinhole shutters and books.

Without Lenses: Where are you all located?
Eric Renner / Nancy Spencer: Southwest New Mexico. 30 miles east of Silver City, in the Mimbres Valley, it's very rural!

WL: How long have you been making cameras?
ER/NS: The Leonardo has been made since about 1995. Both Nancy and I have done pinhole for many, many years.

WL: How long does one camera take to make?

Molly Caged by Adam Hawkey
Leonardo Pinhole Camera,
Polaroid type 55, f250

Molly CU by Adam Hawkey
Leonardo Pinhole Camera,
Polaroid type 55, f250

Sleepy Sister by Adam Hawkey
Leonardo Pinhole Camera,
Polaroid type 55, f250

ER/NS: In production, a 4x5 - 3 inch Leonardo takes about an hour. We have made over 4000 of these.

WL: How many folks work with you?
ER/NS: Just the two of us. When Eric's two sons were in college they helped too, while on vacations.

WL: What kind of workspace do you have?
ER/NS: Just a very small shop with a bench saw and a drill press, no heat. Most people would not consider it a workspace.

WL: Which camera did you start with?
ER/NS: Eric made many pinhole cameras to do art with before the Leonardo, the earliest ones were mat board and could take a 75 foot roll of 9 inch high film (aerial film) making 6 pinhole panorama images. (1968). If you look through Eric's book "Pinhole Photography: Rediscovering an Historic Technique" you'll see some of the cameras.
Nancy started with an oatmeal box. By 1995 we started to make the Leonardo in all sizes.

The Santa Barbara pinhole camera was one that Pinhole Resource initially sold as well as the 4x5 Pinhole Camera Kit and the 120 film PinZip, in about 1988 was when we initially carried those.

Pinhole Resource Inc., a 501 3 c non-profit started in 1985. When it got difficult to pay for the printing costs of Pinhole Journal in 1995, we started to make the Leonardo cameras which then made it possible to keep Pinhole Journal alive. By that same time all the major camera suppliers wanted to carry pinhole products.

WL: What's the oddest camera you have ever made?
ER/NS: Hard to say which is the oddest. People have related to the red pepper camera, since it acts like a natural safelight. The most complicated one Eric ever made used a 10 foot piece of photo paper and had thousands of holes around it. He was teaching at the Visual Studies Workshop in 1974 when he made that camera.

WL: Where can people buy your cameras?
ER/NS: At the Pinhole Resource website - pinholeresource.com, Calumet, Freestyle Sales, Glazer's Camera in Seattle and others.

WL: Do you drill your pinholes yourself or have them made?
ER/NS: Minute Aperture Imaging makes our pinholes, that's Bill Christiansen. They are high quality micro-drilled and polished pinholes.

WL: What about zoneplates and seives - are those available or are you thinking about adding them?
ER/NS: Pinhole Resource started selling zone plates and were the first to do so commercially for pinhole photographers. The original zone plates (75mm to 300mm) were made by Kenneth A. Conners and then he turned their manufacturing over to Pinhole Resource . Sam Wang was able to make very short focal length zone plates (38mm and 45mm), so he makes ones we sell for digital cameras, Nikon, Canon EOS, Minolta, Olympus and Leica.

WL: Have you seen growth in the amount of orders since digital has become so pervasive or are you seeing a decline?
ER/NS: There are more people ordering digital pinhole and zone plate body caps and less large format cameras. We get orders from everywhere in the world.

WL: It seems to me that there are more people making cameras than ever and there are more "commercial" ventures. What are your thoughts on this?
ER/NS: As long as money is to be made there will be any number of quality to inferior pinhole cameras on the market. Pinhole Resource has always tried to carry the most unusual ones and the ones of the highest quality. Some of the most unusual pinhole cameras, the Hexomniscope and the Omniscope, made by Matt Abelson, are sold by us. We also sell a Abelson Pinhole, Zone Plate Slit Turret Kit and the Apo II Turret made by Bill Christiansen.

WL: Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, any parting thoughts?
ER/NS: We have 4 new books out: "on deaf ears" by Nancy Spencer and Eric Renner—pinhole images of our assemblages, lens images of the assemblages; "Under the Blue" by Nancy Spencer—pinhole and zone plate digital landscapes; "American Disguise" by Eric Renner—how images impact culture; "Flight" by Nancy Spencer and Rebecca Wackler—a story of a woman and her swans told in pinhole photographs; and the fourth edition of "Pinhole Photography: Rediscovering a Historic Technique" by Eric Renner comes our in Nov, 2008.

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The Merlin Paintcan Camera

Merlin Paintcan Camera creator Jim Kosinski is also a teacher, ranging from kindergarten to university level. His cameras are often used in workshops with kids and his website is full of great advice for how to become a pinhole photographer, even without a darkroom. When Without Lenses launched, one of our first congratulatory emails came from Jim. We caught up with Jim to learn more about his path to making these cameras.

"Paper" Tulips by Deborah Kac
Merlin Paintcan Camera, F/200 at 3 minutes

Chillin by Deborah Kac
Merlin Paintcan Camera, f/200 at 4 minutes

Without Lenses: Where are you located?
Jim Kosinski: We're located in the picturesque village of Cherry Valley, on the northern edge of the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. We look over the Mohawk River valley to the Adirondack Mountains. Cooperstown is just a few minutes away.

WL: How long have you been making cameras?
JK: It all started around the turn of the century and MERLIN cameras went on sale about 5 years ago.

WL: How long does one camera take to make?
JK: Making the actual camera is short in time but long on getting all the materials & supplies stocked and ready to roll. Packaging is crucial and that takes a lot of extra effort. Boxes undergo a wicked amount of stress during the shipping process!

WL: How many folks work with you?
JK: Mostly I work solo, but will get one or two people to help with a large order (for example, 150 - 200 cameras). It is important to get the cameras out to customers quickly!

WL: What does your workspace look like?
JK: The workshop is that of a typical cottage industry.

WL: Which camera did you start with?
JK: The first MERLIN was made from a gallon paintcan and it had a complete darkroom inside: paper, chemistry, safelight & processing container. It was scaled back to just the camera due to the cost of making all the components by hand.

WL: How long before you expanded to make other sizes?
JK: The quart size, just right for the hands of children, was added within a year. I'm currently working on a combination pinhole camera & camera obscura.

WL: What's the oddest camera you have ever made?
JK: Are there any odd cameras? One customer expressed a fear of photographing people and I made her a special camera labeled "Merlin Custom Paints". This was used in outdoor cafes and helped her to overcome those fears. Another interesting camera had multiple pinholes and a removable lens. The shutter was a strip of paper with a window cut-out, which could be pulled across an aperture at different rates, depending on the brightness of the scene. It also had a simple screen, which could be used to preview an image or to study image formation, as in classical physics experiments. My cameras tend to feature a flexible design so photographers can use their imaginations and manipulate the way light is captured to form an image.

WL: Where can our readers get a Merlin?
JK: Cameras are available through distributors and directly from me. Ordering information is available on the website www.paintcancamera.com

WL: Do you drill your pinholes yourself or have them made?
JK: Each camera is hand made and the pinholes are precision drilled.

WL: What about zoneplates and seives - are those available or are you thinking about adding them?
JK: They are not currently available but they are interesting.

WL: Have you seen growth in the amount of orders since digital has become so pervasive or are you seeing a decline?
JK: Orders have dropped. The digital age took over faster than anyone imagined it would.

WL: It seems to me that there are more people making cameras than ever and there are more "commercial" ventures. What are your thoughts on this?
JK: This is true, of course, but the cost of starting up an "alternative camera" business is high and their photo-market share is actually pretty small. It also takes a lot of work! My approach has been to tackle the relatively complex process of teaching & learning photographic art & science with a simple, inexpensive solution while other companies address the less complicated task of taking a photograph, but use more complicated cameras.

WL: Where do most of your orders come from - who's doing the most pinhole photography out there, in your opinion?
JK: Most of my customers have been involved in education programs, and it has been a pleasure to work with and help many teachers & students around the globe. Mostly this is online, but sometimes I get to visit the class, where the activity and personal interaction is great fun for everyone, and very educational, too!

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Boothe Park #2 by Bruce Berrien
Pinhole Blender Mini-120, multiple exposures

Looking Up At Trees #26 by Bruce Berrien
Pinhole Blender Mini-120, multiple exposures

60 Chestnuts, Flying Cloud
by Heather Champ
Pinhole Blender mini-35, Three 2 minute and 30 second exposures

Buddha, Japanese Tea Garden
by Heather Champ
Pinhole Blender mini-35, 5 second exposure

The Pinhole Blender

One of the most interesting and creative cameras (in my opinion) available is the Pinhole Blender. Round cans with multiple pinholes, these cameras blend multiple exposures onto one strip of film creating amazing and beautiful images. I first met Chris Peregoy at the f295 symposium last year when he was trying out his new, smaller mini-cameras.

Without Lenses: Where are you located?
Chris Peregoy: Baltimore, Maryland, USA

WL: How long have you been making pinhole cameras?
CP: I've been making the Pinhole Blender, since 2002 but I've been making pinhole cameras for about 15 years

WL: What prompted you to start making cameras?
CP: My first Pinhole Blenders were made as Christmas presents in 2000. My friends thought it was such a good idea and that I should start an online business to sell them.

WL: How long does one camera take to make?
CP: To make one camera it would take over 24 hours to assemble it and allow the paint to harden. I can cut that down by working on many at once.

WL: How many folks work with you?
CP: One, its just me. Sometimes for a large order I'll hire one of my students to help with assembly.

WL: What does your workspace look like?
CP: My workshop is in my basement. I finish the assembly, attach lenses and box up in my studio on the second floor of my house.

WL: Which camera did you start with?
CP: The Original Pinhole Blender 120, the three-hole 120 camera was my first. This is the one based upon my Christmas present.

WL: How long before you expanded to make other sizes?
CP: About six months after I started selling cameras I was asked if I would make a 35mm version. I started selling them about six months after that.

WL: What's the oddest camera you have ever made?
CP: I made one for a camera swap called the Seven Day Camera. It was a 4 inch tube about 20 inches long with 7 pinholes along the length. The entire roll of film wrapped around the center core in an upwards spiral. A control knob allowed the user to rotate the center core http://taco.thoma.be/gallery/The-Seven-Day-Pinhole-Camera-of-Chris-Peregoy Another odd camera that's received a lot of attention is my coconut camera. This is basically half a coconut with a hinged back, It uses photo paper or single sheets of film cut to fit in the coconut. I used a cork for the shutter and attached a lanyard to the user could wear the camera around their neck. http://www.f295.org/wordpress/?page_id=71

WL: How did you start selling the cameras?
CP: I started by announcing my camera in the Pinhole-Discussion mailing list http://spitbite.org/pinhole-discussion/list.html

WL: Where can our readers get a pinhole blender?
CP: Pinhole Blenders are sold in the US and through out the world from my website
http://www.pinholeblender.com And are sold through distributors in Japan, England, Germany and Switzerland.

WL: Do you drill your pinholes yourself or have them made?
CP: I use single slot aperture grids. These are precision pinholes that were originally produced for Electron Microscopy.

Chris Peregoy in his workshop making Pinhole Blenders

7 Day Camera, by Chris Peregoy

WL: What about zone plates and sieves - are those available or are you thinking about adding them?
CP: My mini Blender series are supplied with both a pinhole and a zone plate. I make my zone plates myself with a high resolution film recorder onto Technical pan film developed to a high D-max.

WL: Have you seen growth in the amount of orders since digital has become so pervasive or are you seeing a decline?
CP: Orders were pretty slow for the first two years but picked up quickly when I started selling in Japan. Now with distributors across Europe I'm seeing an overall increase everywhere. I think users are drawn to the DIY aspects of pinhole image making. Perhaps they have made a simple box camera but now want to move on to film. I think blogs have played a big part in the recent increase as well. People see interesting work on flickr or f295 and they want to get in on the fun.

WL: Where do most of your orders come from - who's doing the most pinhole photography out there, in your opinion?
CP: I first thought my cameras would appeal most to students. I now think that most are going to advanced camera users and professional photographers that want a release from their digital cameras.

Building Confidence: Pinhole Workshops with The New Orleans Kid Camera Project

Benjamin Wooten — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 22:30:22 GMT

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“In recording themselves, their families, and neighborhoods - with cameras they had made themselves - these kids created fresh and beautiful perspectives on their lives, the likes of which they and others had not before seen.”

After Hurricane Katrina made landfall in late August 2005, a ravaged American Gulf Coast cried out desperately for aid. Parts of Florida were flooded, and the storm surge had crushed coastal Mississippi, all but destroying cities such as Waveland, Bay St. Louis, and Pass Christian. It was in Louisiana, however, that Katrina swathed her largest and deadliest path, due to the catastrophic failure of New Orleans’ flood protection system. Over fifty levee breaches left 80% of metro New Orleans underwater, in some cases for weeks, before floodwaters fully receded. The city suffered over 1,400 fatalities, with thousands more left homeless and displaced.

Close on the heels of Katrina’s retreating floodwaters, New Orleans residents Cat Malovic and Joanna Rosenthal co-founded The New Orleans Kid Camera project. Both graduate students in Tulane University’s master of social work program, Malovic and Rosenthal were joined by a host of creative and industrious partners looking to contribute to the city’s recovery through their unique program. The New Orleans Kid Camera Project shares common philosophical ground with many community oriented art projects, notably Zana Briski’s 2000-2003 work in the red-light district of Calcutta, as well as contemporary Kids With Cameras projects coordinated by Gigi Cohen in Haiti, Jason Eskenazi in Jerusalem, and Teriz Michael in Cairo. The New Orleans project, however, situated itself uniquely and immediately amongst the direct aftermath of a devastating natural disaster, where the kids’ wounds were fresh, the shaken reality of their lives so utterly foreign. Assisting the city’s youth in the emotional aftermath of Katrina, by creatively empowering them with photography, became the Project’s focus.

Handing out kits

Learning about pinhole

Built cameras

My involvement with the Project came in January of 2007, shortly after my graduate work in the art department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, had taken the direction of camera-making and pinhole photography. With an invitation from the Kid Camera Project to teach weekend workshops, a trip volunteering in New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity turned into a doubly rewarding experience. In preparation for the workshops, I spent the fall semester designing and fabricating large-format pinhole camera kits. Each kit—plywood siding fit to a 4x5” film holder and assembled using thumbscrews—was handed to the kids as flat parts in a small cloth bag during the first weekend workshop. Groups, which varied in size from one child (in the 12th ward) up to almost thirteen (in Gert Town), ranged in age from five to fourteen years. Regardless of age, all of the kids assembled, photographed with, and even painted their cameras by the end of the third workshop.

For three weekends straight, we met with groups by ward or neighborhood, each once per weekend. The Gentilly group met Friday afternoons in their FEMA trailer park, the 9th Ward kids on Saturday mornings in front of their home, 12th Ward on Saturday afternoon, Gert Town on Sunday morning, and Orleans East on Sunday afternoon. Considering their photographic experience had previously been defined by the satisfying ‘click-clack’ of an SLR shutter, the kids’ somewhat skeptical response to sheet film and lensless cameras was easily understandable. Regardless, a quick presentation showing Justin Quinnell’s ‘Smiley Cam’, and passing around a couple of image-laden books, sufficed to completely pique their curiosity. Shortly, each group of previously unconvinced kids were busily building and painting their cameras, and then making images. After twisting the cork into place on the lensboard of her recently constructed camera, a five-year-old girl from the Gert Town group could scarcely contain her excitement. With camera raised high over her head she rushed down the sidewalk, yelling out to show her family what she had made, before settling down in the middle of the road to make a self portrait. One of the older kids in the 9th Ward group, having already mastered most functions of a

Unpacking the kits

Assembling the kits

Painting the cameras

35mm SLR, immediately realized that the four-to-eight second exposure time of his box camera meant that movement would be recorded as a still image. The subsequent photograph of the clouds moving lazily across the sky above his home remains one of my favorite images. I remember clearly the certainty in his face—though he could neither compose the shot nor see immediate results—as he pulled the cork shutter, counted to four, and calmly moved on to create his next image.

Beyond introducing pinhole photography into their repertoire of creative knowledge, however, it was the act of constructing functional cameras with their own hands that complimented the kids’ creative strength and confidence in a very unique area: craft. Each handmade box camera, replete with cork shutter and custom paintjob, evolved from a singular relationship, shared only between maker and the made. With their own pinhole cameras in hand, the kids’ knowledge of taking photographs moved beyond the slightly impersonal metal and plastic 35mm cameras used in past meetings and returned immediately after each session. In craft, they took physical and conceptual ownership of photography at a new level, and met photographic expression on different terms. In recording themselves, their families, and neighborhoods—with cameras they had made themselves—these kids created fresh and beautiful perspectives on their lives, the likes of which they and others had not before seen. While the tragedy of the hurricane and its aftermath permeate many of these images in subtle instances, it is instead the kids’ resilience, sense of wonder, and elasticity in the face of hardship that stands out. It is for the nourishment of such qualities that community groups like the New Orleans Kid Camera Project exist, and I am honored to have been able to give my time towards this end.

For more information on the New Orleans Kid Camera Project, please visit: http://www.kidcameraproject.org.

For information regarding the New Orleans chapter of Habitat for Humanity, please visit: http://www.habitat-NOLA.org.

The author sincerely thanks Cat Malovic, Joanna Rosenthal, Ariya Martin, Ericka Walker, and all of the New Orleans kids, for making this project possible.

Imagined Spaces

Erin Malone — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:08:51 GMT

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“If you aren't making artwork, then you're not an artist, and if you're not an artist you don't belong in a classroom teaching art.”

In April 2007, I attended the first f295 Symposium and was treated to the vision and work of Lou Krueger. I was fascinated by his work and the combination of intricate dioramas he constructs and the custom cameras he makes to take the images. A new camera for each scene. We talked to Lou this summer and he peels back some of the mystery by sharing his processes and taking us behind the scenes of these fascinating constructions.

Erin Malone: When did you start working with pinhole?
Lou Krueger: I first started with pinhole in the early 80's. My work to that point was a variation on cliches-verre (hand-drawn, light-printed) in which I constructed and painted16"x20" color negatives or positives and printed them as C-prints or Cibachromes. That process encouraged an image that was at its heart, somewhat surreal and unpredictable. For me pinhole embraces a similar kind of fantasy, the distortion of space, focus and scale provide fertile ground for images that are simultaneously truthful and fantastic. The thesis sentence from my most recent artist's statement pretty much summarizes 35 years of photographs: “My work is fantasy masquerading as reality, with an emphasis on the existentially absurd.”

What came first—the idea for the image and the construction or the camera?
Depending at what stage of my career, I might give you a different answer. When I constructed my first pinhole camera it was a very modest device capable of recording images on 4x5 film with very little thought given to much else other than making large 50-60 inch color, pinhole prints. I used that first camera for15 years, and made mural size installations that exploited scale and distortion. Today I use a variety of cameras that help me better achieve my specific narrative.

In fact I've discovered that I'm as much an object-maker as I am an image- maker. I think I like constructing the cameras and the dioramas because they appeal to the toymaker in me…the process of trial and error, the hands-on of directly forming object that can respond to itself as you go. Whereas the photographs appeal to me because of the illusions they represent… of the magic created by truth and fantasy sharing the same space.

Inside and outside shots of teeth used for the image "French Kiss"

When you build the environment and cameras, do you work on each simultaneously, or do you sequence? Do you make different incarnations of cameras in order to “get” the image imagined?
I wish I could say that it's all clear cut and that one follows the other logically, but unfortunately it doesn't always work that way. I have a series of cameras and removable lens boards that can be altered to suit my particular needs. As an image evolves either on my worktable or in my head, I usually build or design features that will best take advantage of the set that I create. For example, the 4x5 camera and lens design for “Honeymouth” was made specifically to record an image that would be sharp at about 21/2 inches (the front part of the teeth) and then flare everywhere else within the image giving the feeling that the bees were in motion. The model of teeth was purchased at a flea market thirty years ago and redesigned by me to attach (rest against, on a stand) to the front of the camera.

What motivates you to create?
I believe strongly in the democracy of art, the opportunities that it creates, and feel privileged to be a practitioner of it. I'm a storyteller, and stories tend to transcend both time and tragedy. My narratives will never change anything, but perhaps they have ability to preserve something. So if nothing else my artwork (I also paint and draw on occasion) represents a point of demarcation, and a reflection on the absurd nature of the contradictory and inexplicable messages that routinely bombard us as we go about our daily business in a world that is going mad. I'm a maker of fiction, and as a reader of it, I've learned that frequently there is a better description of truth in fiction than you can find in documents of the phenomenal world.

It's not too often that most of us find the right words to frame a catchy comeback, or in the heat of argument discover an articulate, spontaneous rebuttal. But I can think of one occasion, in my own experience, where I said exactly what I wanted to say, and it summarized perfectly my feelings about making artwork. I was in the process of having my MFA photographs matted at a local frame shop, and one of the other patrons in the store looked at my work and asked, “were you on drugs?” I replied, “Madam, they—gesturing to my prints—are the drug.” The phrase was a quote from Dali…. (To any students out there, attend your art history classes!)

What artists / photographers inspire you?
I'm afraid the list is endless and doesn't stop with visual artists. Musicians, writers, performers also work their way into my consciousness on a regular basis. I have no clear-cut standards that might apply universally. My work and process embrace an overly baroque complexity, but I have deep respect for simplicity. I admire risk-takers and think that most truly meaningful artwork usually breaks with convention. But if I have to pick out a few of artist/photographers: Charles Eisenman and Diane Arbus for their recognition of stratification and marginalization; Duane Michals for creating unbelievable narrative structures; Susan Meiselas ,James Nachtway, and Sebastian Salgado for taking photographs I could never take; Joel Peter Witkin, Eric Fischl and Andres Serano for examining the taboo and accepting all the crap that accompanies it; Gregory Crewdson and Sandy Skoglund for obsession times ten; Robert Frank for speaking frankly; Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel for their use of satire, irony and wonderful juxaposition; Sally Mann for her family of man and clarity of purpose; Janine Antoni, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, and Carrie Mae Weams for undermining stereotypes; Sophie Calle for her introspective view of intimacy, or rather that which substitutes for it in contemporary society. And the list goes on, and on.

Two of the cameras Lou Krueger works with. The multi-lens camera is currently under construction.

Do you ever photograph your creations with traditional cameras?
I haven't yet but there are times when I am tempted. The odd thing about this is that I bought a Hasselblad thirty years ago, and that's the camera I use to record images of family, friends, and travel. It's my two-dollar, home-made pinhole cameras that I use to make my serious work.

Do you use pinhole out in the “real” world?
A qualified yes. For the first 15 years of my pinhole work I photographed a broad cross-section of subjects as I discovered them, but always with the knowledge that the camera would distort, disrupt, and alter the meaning of the thing being photographed. So I don't think anyone would ever place my work in the category best identified as straight.

What do you do with the construction and the camera after you have made the image?
Good question. When I started with the dioramas it was my intention to treat the set as a small stage or theater; with a curtain and moveable partitions, etc. My thinking at the time was that I'd simply change scenes, figures and lighting to create a whole new environment for each new print. But what has actually happened since was not something I anticipated.

Usually, I'll spend a month or more creating the components for the diorama that I create, and then I'll shoot about 25-30 negatives to get to the final iteration of the print. What I discovered was that the sets are often times as interesting to me as the prints that record them. As with any constructed reality or tableau image (think Sandy Skoglund here) there are those that will find the thing itself as rewarding as the document of it. The difference being that the camera has but a single point of view and prevents the viewer from finding other ways to understand or interact with the scene itself. And with my work the camera is constructed to compress space, alter scale and exploit that point of view in such a manner that the resulting image is not just a simple record of the diorama, but rather it's an interpretation of it.

Cigarettes being made and constructed into the image "Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health."

With some sets I'll spend far too many hours trying to resolve small issues. For example, in the piece, “Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health” I spent two weeks trying to figure out how to make the cigarettes look as if they were actually lit while flying through space. What I discovered was that there is a particular foil wrapper that surrounds a Hershey's Kiss that worked well for my purpose. That foil, removed from the candy, balled up and rubbed with a permanent red marker looks pretty convincing when reinserted into the cigarette. I spent weeks making the cigarettes and building the set, and the getting the exposures right; I took the photograph, made 30"x40"prints of it and dismantled the whole thing. The issue for me now is that set was pretty exciting in its own right, more so than the final image, and now that I've got some distance from the image I'd love to go back in there and change the primary figure and re-photograph it, but obviously I can't because the set no longer exists. In this case the photograph is not one with which I'm satisfied; the components are far better than the print.

So I learned to save the sets. Since that point, I've come to the conclusion that the cameras, the sets, and the prints work very well together and hopefully might make for a provocative exhibition someday. The few people that have seen one of my dioramas, and the print of it, appear to respond positively to both. I was concerned that first-hand knowledge of the set might undermine the magic of the print, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

How has this work affected your teaching?
I can think of a thousand ways…. If you aren't making artwork, then you're not an artist, and if you're not an artist you don't belong in a classroom teaching art. So on a general level, I believe that it is your work as an artist that gives you credibility in the classroom. As an educator you feel less like a fraud when actively engaged in the process of making work, and that usually translates into increased risk-taking by you and your students. Faculty and their students share similar issues as artists, so how I approach my own artwork clearly influences how students approach theirs. If done properly I try to model in myself those behaviors I'd like to see in my students.

However, and to better answer your question, this particular body of work has a direct link to my current teaching. Every so often you get lucky as an instructor and a perfect storm occurs, the planets align. I recently taught an advanced course titled, “Experimental Camera,” that in fact drew directly from my research with cameras. I spent forty hours a week on that class alone, and not because I had to, but rather because the kids worked so far beyond the parameters of their existing knowledge that I wanted to see how far we could push the envelope. They were driven, I was driven, and at one point I remember declaring to them that “this is no longer a class, it's a #@$*&%! quest.” We fed off each other and what I was in the process of discovering about my own camera constructions, dioramas, and prints made an imprint on their learning, and what they learned in turn influenced how I thought about my work.

Set for the image "Disarmed". Bottom image: Arms closeup.

What's your favorite image you have created? What was the hardest to build and photograph?
It's funny but over the whole of my career I think that I've made only about twenty pieces that I'm really, really satisfied with… pieces that in hindsight I would not change. Of the current group of photographs I'm pretty happy with “Disarmed”, “Honeymouth,” and “The French Kiss”. Of those I'd have to choose “Disarmed” because of its personal significance. This particular print incorporates photographs that I took of my parents at times of extreme duress. The image of my dad with the cat on him—unbeknownst to us at the time—turned out to be an image of his first epileptic seizure. He was confused, lost and so he crawled up in a sleeping bag and slept for two days; it was the first time that I'd ever experienced him in a position of jeopardy. And the image of my mother—the figure hovering above him—was taken a couple of months after my dad died. Because I took the photograph of her with my pinhole camera her arms tended to morph into the table she was sitting at it and it looked very much like she was frozen in a block of ice. In both cases my parents appeared to be without the use of their arms and vulnerable to whatever may come.

Thus the arms in the diorama provided a kind of symbolic support and protection.

And if not the hardest to create…certainly the most complex piece technically was “The French Kiss” with it's constructed mouths, and six different light sources (including sparklers), and ten minute exposures.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in this media?
I've taught for thirty years and probably not a day goes by without me questioning my position to give advice. However, I give it often, I give it freely, and I also know that what works for me doesn't always work for others. Everyone develops differently and at varied rates depending on both motivation and exposure to stimuli.

My advice: You'd better love what you're doing because if you're serious, you'll probably be doing it for sixty or seventy years. So find the thing that you are truly passionate about, do it, and don't apologize for doing it. Artists—and scientists, I think—establish their own problems to be solved. We design the thing that we want to better understand. There is no one telling us that you must do this, or you must do that. We choose, and perhaps sometimes, the thing itself chooses us. There is no high quite like completing a piece that expresses almost perfectly the thing you feel. It's not about celebrity, status, recognition, or acclaim it's about expression and discovery. I find that the better I'm able to express myself, and the more I learn, the more adequate I feel as a human being.

And a closing thought… my goal: to be an engine of inspiration in the lives of my students, to create magic with my artwork, and find grace with my life.

Lou Krueger in his studio

LOU KRUEGER received both of his degrees from Northern Illinois University; a BFA in Metals, 1970, and an MFA in Photography, 1976. Over the last thirty years he has taught photography at NIU, Elgin Community College, Syracuse University, and currently Bowling Green State University. Krueger was one of the co-founders of the Syracuse University art photography program, and has also served several stints as an arts administrator, most recently as the Director of the School of Art at BGSU. Lou's photographs, drawings and paintings have been exhibited locally, regionally and nationally.
“I have been deeply privileged as an artist-educator, love teaching, and firmly believe that my best artwork still lies in front of me.”

Magic on the Playa

Erin Malone — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:08:51 GMT

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“We're not a collection of individuals but instead a group of artists working together to produce something much greater than we ever could as individuals. We're a group of 100 or so people over the 9 years that pinhole has been in existence.”

Each summer in late August, August 27 through September 3, 2007 this year, thousands of people travel to the remote and barren Black Rock desert of Nevada to create the Black Rock City, also known as Burning Man. Home for a week to artists, revelers, people who want to express themselves through dance, art and play and home to the Pinhole Camp.

Without Lenses caught up with Yvette Pasqua, from the Pinhole Camp group of artists, to learn about this highly collaborative project and some of the unique challenges of creating pinhole imagery in the middle of the desert, in a moving truck.

Erin Malone: When did the Pinhole Camp start?
Yvette Pasqua: It started about 9 years ago in 1999 and the first project was the Burning Man festival that year.

Whose idea was it to do a pinhole camp?
Pinhole was the brainchild of a handful of friends (all guys) who were going to Burning Man for the first time to participate. They all lived in the LA and SF area. They wanted to contribute to the art at Burning Man in a unique and lasting way. Many of them attended college together and were engineers and architects and all of them had a love for art, community, and fun.

Who are the main artists involved?
I'd prefer to keep any individual names out of the pinhole description because we're not a collection of individuals but instead a group of artists working together to produce something much greater than we ever could as individuals. We're a group of 100 or so people over the 9 years that pinhole has been in existence. Over that time, leadership of the group has transfered from one collection of artists to another, but some of the participants have remained the same throughout. Most of the the techniques, the process we use, the materials we use, and vibe we create around teaching people how to make our art has been handed down from group to group and remained the same.

Have some years been better than others?
Of course every year is different. That's one of the many exciting, wonderful things about both Burning Man and Pinhole Camp. Some years we're a group of 12 and other years we're a group of 50 people. Some years the weather at Burning Man is easier for producing our art and other years it's harder. Some years we're placed in an area of Black Rock City that is highly trafficked by participants and others we're in a more quiet location. Some years we spend more time preparing and other years we need to make do with less preparation. That said, every year has produced art that excites us and makes both the pinhole artists and Burning Man festival participants smile.

How do you work in this very dust filled environment?
Dust and light are our 2 biggest enemies on the playa. As a result, we have to be careful about two main things: ensuring the pinhole cameras (large barrels) and the darkroom are dust and light tight. We repair the barrels each year using our favorite tool of choice, black gaffers tape. We build a light tight and relatively dust free darkroom inside a 16-25' moving truck. The moving truck is the pinhole camp's transport out to the playa and it doubles as the light-free container for our darkroom. All sides of the truck are light and dust free.

To seal light and dust from the one open side exposed to the outside, we hang three layers of Duvateen drapes in a maze-like pattern from the top of the truck to the floor of the truck. The multi-layered drapes ensure that light and dust don't make it to the back of the truck where the darkroom magic happens. The drapes also ensure that light doesn't enter the truck if someone is entering the truck while we're processing prints and, as before, we use gaffers tape whenever we need a minor light or dust block.

What's been the most difficult part logistically?
The most difficult part is getting all the materials to and from Burning Man. At it's smallest, off-season, the pinhole camp occupies a 10'X5' storage space. That doesn't include all the supplies that we need to replenish each year. We need a whole crew just to load and unload the materials from the storage space and into the truck and to purchase any needed new materials for the year. This takes on average, a group of 6 people about 20-40 hours of work each.

Images are hung inside the dome at the Pinhole Camp. photo by: kikipedia (2006)

Do you set up a "gallery," of the prints once you develop them, during Burning Man?
Yes! The pinhole gallery is one of the best parts of the pinhole camp. We set up a gallery in our 15' diameter geodesic dome. We hang about 10-12 prints at a time facing the interior of the dome, and typically change the prints each day so as to create something new for festival participants and pinhole camp members to view, explore, and appreciate.

What happens to the images after camp comes down?
We, pinhole camp members, take some of our favorite prints home with us, but we give the vast majority (about 70%) of our prints away as gifts to other Burning Man participants. We almost always give them to either the artists whose work we photographed or to a festival participant who volunteered their time to help us at pinhole camp (either by working in the darkroom, by taking photographs, or by helping us setup/breakdown camp, etc.). We especially love giving away the prints to that group of people.

How has your process changed over the years?
Our process started with a stationary pinhole camera that we would build out of wood. It was about 10 feet long, by 7 feet wide and 7 feet tall. The front of the camera had the pinhole and we'd attach the photographic paper there. The back of the camera had our darkroom. We would encourage festival participants to come by with their friends; in costumes, in arts cars, etc. to take pictures with us.

Barrel camera in place to photograph a sculpture on the playa. photo by: Tom Davis (2003).

We then evolved to barrel cameras that we attach to little trailers on the back of bicycles which journey all over Burning Man to take photos of art projects and festival participants. The barrel cameras come back to our darkroom inside our truck and we process the images there. In addition to that big process change, we've also refined our process in some minor ways. These include better ways of making the barrel cameras light tight (gaffers tape and bungee chords), making the pinholes more consistent (using soda cans for the pinhole instead of the barrel material), keeping contamination out of the darkroom chemicals (labels and covers), and making the photographic paper cutting faster and less time consuming (we use a large paper cutter).

Has group participation increased since you switched to the barrel camera on wheels approach to making images?
This new approach was very liberating for us. Unlike before, where the art had to come to us, the portable barrel cameras enable us to find interesting and unique art or moments in time no matter where it is. This allows us to really work our imaginations and experiment with different compositions, exposure times and other ideas.

Have you stuck exclusively to pinhole or have you tried experimenting with other lenses (zoneplate, slits etc)?
We've basically only explored pinhole photography as a group, but we do take high resolution pictures of almost all of the pinhole prints each year so that we can document our gallery each year before gifting the pictures to festival participants or taking them home.

We tried a 10' zoom lens one year that was just a long cylinder attached in front of the pinhole. The zoom worked pretty well but it was too hard to focus and determine the right sweet spot for exposure.

Is there a favorite camera or image?
Too many unique beautiful images to pick one...and our cameras are just a means to art. we love them but all equally :)

What's in the works this year? Anything different or new folks should look for?
Each year we make small improvements that make for better pinhole art but most people won't notice those things. The thing that excites us the most is that every year the work we produce is unique and awesome in the true sense of the word. We make people smile just by looking at our art and we make people feel good about themselves by learning a new skill as interesting and different as large scale pinhole art. Folks should look to capturing their own dreams and visions at Burning Man this year through our pinhole art.

Do you have advice for others wanting to create a large, participatory pinhole experience?
Go for it. It's a great medium for group participation, as anyone, technical and non-technical, formally trained artists and untrained artists alike, can participate and create beautiful art.

The pinhole camp has been creating large-scale portraits with Burning Man festival participants since 1999. After the 2007 event, the camp plans to collaborate with artists in the Disorient camp to add pinhole to Disorient in 2008.