About

The Pinhole Project began as a way for digital photography students without access to a darkroom to make long-exposure pinhole images. Founded by photographer and longtime photography educator Janet Neuhauser, the project grew from a classroom experiment into an archive of thousands of images made by students and participants around the world.

Janet passed away in March 2026. Photographer Jenny Riffle has since taken over The Pinhole Project and is honored to continue Janet’s work and her belief that this simple, incredible form of photography should be accessible to anyone who wants to try it.

Long-exposure images from metal tins are exposed outside onto semi-matte black-and-white enlarging paper; a negative is formed over time, which can be seen when the paper is removed from the tin. If this paper negative were developed in traditional darkroom chemistry, it would blacken due to overexposure. Instead, the negative is scanned, inverted, and saved as a TIFF or JPEG. The light from the scanner fogs the paper negative, which is then discarded. The final image only exists digitally after it has been scanned but, of course, can be printed.

Thousands of images have been made for The Pinhole Project. Because of the long exposures, the trail of the sun is visible arcing across the sky, water flattens out and becomes still, and people move too quickly to be recorded. For some reason, the black-and-white photographic paper records oranges, yellows, blues, greens, and sometimes reds. These colors are probably due to the polycontrast dyes that are usually washed out during paper development. The negatives are not developed.

Many different types of tins have been used, including ones with multiple holes, both rectangular and round. The basic premise always remains: images are made in simple homemade tins with a tiny pinhole instead of a lens and record light over time.

Simple and incredible—and everyone can do it!