Louisville Pinhole Workshop

On September 18, 2021, the first Louisville Pinhole Workshop was held as part of the Louisville Photo Biennial celebration this year. I want to thank the participants for coming as well as the Louisville Photo Biennial for sponsoring this event. It was a pleasure to have so many people interested in an unusual photographic discipline as pinhole photography. For those who are unfamiliar with pinhole photography, it is a lensless form of photography, in which an image projected on film, inside a box or light proof container. It’s origins begin well before film photography was invented. I led a discussion about the history of pinhole photography, followed by a discussion on how it is practiced. We finished with a demonstration on how to make your own pinhole camera out of a shoebox, a piece of aluminum and tape. We then took our cameras for a photowalk at the Falls of the Ohio State Park in southern Indiana. The day was finished with lunch in Clarksville, In.

I took our darkroom paper from the day and processed everything in my darkroom. My intention was to scan our images and post them on the Louisville Worldwide Pinhole Day Facebook Group. Sadly, the pinhole images were all overexposed. I tried to salvage them in in Photoshop, but no filter or slider could bring these images to from the darkest depths. I retested the paper/shoebox combination and found everything was working properly. I am humbled and dismayed by their results in the real world after testing these shoeboxes several times before. My only explanation for their failure has to do with the exposure metering. I didn’t anticipate the intensity of light reflecting off the fossil bed at the Falls of the Ohio when I checked our exposure. Rookie mistake and I will own it.

It was a pleasure and a privilege to meet so many photographers interested in pinhole photography. I sncerely thank all of you for attending. I hope to have another workshop next year.