Worldwide Pinhole Day was on Sunday, and as someone who takes that holiday quite seriously, I usually try to bring at least one long-simmering idea to life.
This year had other plans.
The image I intended to make never happened, thanks to a rather uninvited digital circus. One of the sites I manage decided it was the perfect time to host a three-day showdown between me, an intruder, and a swarm of bots. What followed was a blur of 16-hour days filled with rebuilding, testing, migrating, and the occasional stare into space wondering how I got here.
We managed to stop things before too much damage was done, but not before everything from the site to the server environment needed attention. In the end, the whole operation packed its bags and moved to a new server.
So yes, my carefully planned pinhole masterpiece got bumped.
Iâm keeping that idea under wraps for now, partly because I still like it, and partly because it has officially been promoted to next yearâs Pinhole Birthday project. Some ideas just need to age a little longer⊠preferably without bots involved.
But I did manage to try another idea that worked, at least this time. With pinhole, you never quite know what will show up.
PLAY THE GUITAR TWICE
A pinhole double exposure on 4Ă5, where small changes between shots create an abstract rhythm of light and form.
Iâve always been drawn to abstract art, particularly the geometric language of cubism and Picassoâs guitar paintings. The chair was chosen for its broken wooden shapes, its verticals and crossbars. I hoped that through a double exposure, those elements would begin to shift and overlap, creating something more graphic, something that leans toward that cubist way of seeing.
There are moments in photography where repeating the same thing does not give you the same result. This image grew from that idea, not of taking two exposures, but of seeing the subject twice.
Using a pinhole camera and a single sheet of 4Ă5 film, I made two exposures of a guitar resting on a chair. Between each exposure, I made a few small changes. Nothing dramatic, just enough to let the second image drift slightly away from the first.
THE SETUP
The scene was simple. A guitar resting on a chair, lit with soft, diffused light. A worn canvas backdrop with the brightness of window light showing through.
A 4Ă5 bellows camera, turned into a pinhole camera, sat on a tripod. No lens, just a small selection of openings gathering light over time.
With pinhole work, everything slows down. Exposure is not a fraction of a second, it is something you wait through. That quality became part of the image.
The First Exposure
The first exposure established the composition. The chair, the body of the guitar, and the overall placement within the frame.
This was the foundation, the part of the image that would hold everything together once the second exposure was added.
The Second Exposure
For the second exposure, I did not simply repeat the first.
I changed the pinhole size slightly, from 6.0 to 5.5.
I extended the bellows just a bit, bringing the perspective closer.
And I tilted the camera ever so slightly downward toward the left.
These are small changes, but together they shift the way the camera sees the subject. The second image no longer sits perfectly on top of the first. It moves, separates, and begins to create its own rhythm.
What the Camera Revealed
The result is not just a double exposure, but a layered interpretation.
The neck of the guitar becomes a set of repeating lines.
The body softens into shape rather than object.
And the strings along the fretboard gather light over time, creating that glowing, diffused highlight.
That glow is not added or corrected. It is simply what happens when light rests on the film long enough.
Why It Works
What makes this approach interesting is not the doubling itself, but the differences between the two exposures.
A slight change in aperture
A subtle shift in perspective
A gentle tilt in the frame
Together, they turn repetition into variation. The image becomes less about the guitar, and more about rhythm, memory, and form.
WATCHING FILM DRY
Watching film dry is like pinhole photography⊠you start out patient, and by the end youâre checking on it every five minutes anyway.
Thereâs no behind-the-scenes photo this week, and honestly, thatâs probably for the best. The studio looked like a tripod convention collided with a yard sale. There was just enough room to tiptoe between tables, backdrops, a digitizing station, and one very committed cat asleep in his treehouse, completely unbothered by the chaos.
I did manage to grab a quick phone shot of film hanging to dry, mostly to show off one of my long-running DIY solutions. This setup has been going strong for at least seven years, which is impressive considering the âofficialâ drying rack I once bought from Amazon gave up after about ten uses. Cheap metal, cheap lesson.
Years ago, during one of my thrift shop wanders for props, I found a metal fruit basket for $1.50. It turned out to be perfect for drying both 120 and 4Ă5 film in the spare bathroom. I mounted a stainless steel retractable clothesline inside the shower, pull it across when needed, lock it in place, and hang the basket from it.
The basket itself is rigged with a plastic carabiner and four red whips from Think Tank. The film clips are simple, inexpensive metal ones. I used to rely on the pricier Paterson clip sets, the kind with a weighted end, but they leave holes that donât play nicely when I splice rolls for my Negative Supply digitizing setup. So I went back to the old clips I had tucked away, and wouldnât you know it, they work beautifully.
Itâs not fancy, itâs not pretty, but itâs reliable. And sometimes those are the best solutions hiding in plain sight for $1.50.
TIPTOE PAST THE CAT
Joey slept through it all.
I had an ONDU 4Ă5 pinhole camera set up to photograph him while I worked on the guitar shot. He remained committed to his role.
The guitar is a Martin 000-15SM, for those who enjoy such details. A nice, rich yet bright steel-string sound, especially for someone who usually plays nylon. Great for fingerpicking.
I enjoy working with 4Ă5 film and a pinhole. It feels closer to how I experience objects when I photograph them, not as fixed things, but as something that changes the longer I look.
The pinhole camera slows everything down enough to notice that.
And sometimes, all it takes is a second look to make something familiar feel new again.