What to photograph?

Photography as art is one of those subjective things. It doesn't really matter what I like if I like it. So what I like to photograph may not be your cup of tea. However there are some things that should make taking pinhole images more interesting.

I need to explain a theory I have: There is a difference between "art" & "craft". Craft is the part where you know what you need to know to make art. It's knowing which lens to use, it's knowing how light will affect the image, it's getting a correct exposure it's framing the image properly it's knowing whether black & white or colour would suit better. Art is the end result of the vision and the craftsman's skill. Only the boffins look at the Mona Lisa and ask "I wonder what type of brush Leonardo used for the eyes?" That's the craft question...

It's interesting when you hear someone make the following statement; "That's a really nice image, I really like it. What brand camera did you use? The expectation is that if they went out and got that brand of camera they, also, would be able to take that image... Just because Henri Carteir-Bresson used a Leica doesn't mean that you will be able to capture the "decisive moment"...

There are some technical considerations that need to be considered when "crafting" a pinhole image.

• Pinhole imaging is a slow process, the shutterspeeds are measured in tens of seconds or minutes (and in some cases months).
• Pinhole images are inherently "soft", there is no glass make fine focus happen.
• Pinhole images have an infinite depth of field. An object will be as sharp in the foreground as the same object in the distance. The limiting factor will be the film grain size relative to the size of the object. See the photo of the boat masts with Melbourne in the background in the previous post.
• Pinhole images are slightly more difficult to frame.
• Wide angle (short focal lengths) images will have distortions and vignetting.

So how can I use these technical considerations to craft an image? Personally I think that the easiest thing to experiment with is time... What can I have "move" in an image that will look good?

Think;

• Waterfalls
• Waves
• Clouds
• Stars
• Heads, eyes, arms, legs

I took an image of a still life setting once and during the 11 minute exposure my wife walked through the background. I was expecting to see a ghostly image (of a beautiful female ghost) but there was no record of her being there at all. So we took another image and we stood in the background for a couple of minutes and guess what? We still didn't show up in the image! So my technical brain has decided that there must be a "percentage" of exposure time required for a subject to be collected on film... I'm yet to experiment with this but it is definitely on my list and you'll get to see the results here when I'm done...

So, back to the original question, "What to photograph?" I'm going to start wherever I start and see where it leads...