I am no longer a digital photographer but a full time pinhole photographer. There is a certain stigma good and bad attached to pinhole photography. The first stigma is that pinhole is simple and not done seriously. I want to discourage this way of thinking. It is not simple and I am serious about it. No viewfinder, no focus, no real shutter speeds or aperture choices do not mean it is easy. Pinhole photography requires patience and timing. It is not something that just happens. The second stigma involves the waiting. I recently shot a wedding in pinhole in New York. The young people there were very enthusiastic about pinhole and knew what it was. The only thing they asked, was to see the images now. That can’t happen and I hold images in my mind that I like and I am a patient person who is happy to wait. For waiting is the crux of pinhole photography. A few positive things about pinhole: it harkens back to the beginnings of photography. I do most of my work on film. I am happy with that. I like the tactile feeling of film; the fact that the negative really exists. I like to work in the past.
I am sharing with you today some images I have made over the last several years. Not all are totally done still but they work for me. I hope you will like them too. I started shooting with the pinhole camera over thirty years ago. I am finally strong enough to say I am a pinhole photographer and do nothing else. It is freeing and feels good to me. I no longer care whether others like what I do. I hope they do but if not that’s life. The first row is from the Willapa Bay AiR. 2nd row is from Civita where I stayed in Italy on a fellowship and made lots of pinhole images. The 3rd row is long exposure pinholes from various homemade cans. The 4th row are various pinhole weddings. The 5th row are prints from 4 x 5 inch negatives from my book Innards. The 6th and 7th row are various images shot over the years beginning with an image from the Breaks in
Sputh Dakota and ending with the Point of a Pencil one of the first portfolio prints from LoupeHoles, a still life portfolio. You can see most of these images (with titles) on my website: janetneuhauser.com There are many more that I have not published here.
