Alan Thoburn
Alan Thoburn’s pinhole photography is in black and white, which makes them feel almost ghostly, due to the greys. He usually takes photos of logs submerged in water on the beach, however since it’s in black and white, the water looks more like mist, which makes it seem really mysterious and makes you think what the photos could represent or mean from the photographers perspective. The lighting in the photos are usually quite bright, but with a few bold dark colours standing out in the photos.
His photos usually have a lot of wide grey spaces, but there is still some depth due to the positioning of the logs. Even though the pictures are of a quite boring scene, the use of dark and light tones, and how it’s in black and white, give a mysterious and strange tone. There is a clear use of foreground, midground, and background as the wooden beams are in a line, going out into the background. In the one picture, the rocks are the foreground, then the wooden beams are the midground, almost background of the picture.
As the background in the photos is quite bright, it is most likely that these pictures were taken in the daylight and in some, there is a use of depth of field, which focuses on the front wooden beams, but then the ones behind are blurry. For some of the images, the shutter speed must have been quite quick due to the detail in the photos, however for a few the image is slightly blurry which means the shutter speed must have been slower. It is also likely that in some of the images the photographer has used a high ISO, due to some of them being slightly grainy.
Balazs Sprenc
Sprenc’s pinhole photography is much different compared to Alan Thoburn, as the usual subject of his photos are people, or traces of people, rather than landscapes. He also varies his photos, sometimes having more than one person, or sometimes being in colour or in black and white. The lighting in their photos is similar to Alan Thoburns, as it is quite bright, but with a few features being much darker, but usually in the background giving the picture some contrast in tone. There isn’t much repetition in their photos, and you can clearly see some texture in the photos, for example in the left photo there is a lot of detail in the wood. There is a range of tone in the photos, which is shown by the contrasting dark and light tones in the left photo, and the darker colour on the outside of the photo but a bright yellow in the middle of the right photo. One of the things that are much more different compared to Alan Thoburn is his use of bright colours, as all of Alan Thoburn’s photos are in black and white, whereas Sprenc uses bright colours such as yellows and reds.
There is also some use of foreground, midground, and background, for example in the photo on the left the figure is in the midground, and there are trees on the other side of the lake which are in the background. The photo on the left gives off a mysterious feel, due to it being in black and white and because of the blurry figure in the middle, almost resembling a ghost, which is slightly creepy, in comparison to the photo on the right which uses warm, bright colours, making the image seem busy.
The photos are most likely taken in the daylight, as they are both bright, and you can also almost see the sun in the photo on the right. In both photos there is a clear focal point, however, the figure in the left photo is much blurrier compared to the people in the right photo, who all have clear silhouettes. The left photo most likely has a slow shutter speed, as the figure is blurry, however, the other photo probably has a slightly quicker shutter speed.
Nancy Breslin
The focus of these photographs by Nancy Breslin is the blurry images of people, who are having their breakfast. There is some contrast between the grey tones, some being lighter, whereas other in the background is much darker, however, these tones are softer, rather than being harshly contrasting. In each photo, there is a repeated theme of blurry images of people, most likely because they are moving whilst eating their breakfast. The viewpoint of the image is slightly above the table, and in the foreground of the image, there are cups which seem relatively bigger due to the angle. Compared to some of Sprenc’s work, Nancy doesn’t use colour in her images and keeps them black and white. There is also a clear use of Foreground, midground and background, as the cups are in the foreground, the blurry people are in the midground, then there are buildings or furniture in the background.
Nancy has been taking photos of this setting with a pinhole camera since 2002, and the project has thousands of photos. The images are almost scary, due to the fact that the people are blurry which makes them look likes ghosts. This is similar to one of Sprenc’s photos, which features a blurry figure in the midground.
The lighting in the photos varies, as some are taken outside whereas others are taken indoors, but it’s relatively light in most of the photos. Because some of the photos are indoors, the pinhole camera was probably exposed to light for longer, as there isn’t as much light, which means it has a longer shutter speed.
Justin Quinnell
Compared to the other artists, Justin Quinnell’s work doesn’t have a reoccurring theme, as he takes pictures of many different strange objects. On top of this, he uses colour which is different compared to Nancy Breslin and Alan Thoburn. The edges of the image usually fade into black, which attracts all of the attention to the object he has photographed.
The way the objects are placed in the images and the angle they are photographed show that they are 3 dimensional, rather than being placed on a flat surface and being taken straight on. There’s a huge variety of colours used in the photos, and they are usually contrasting warm and cold colours, such as blue contrasting with red.
The images are fascinating to look at, due to the weird and unusual angles they have been taken at. The photo on the left is an image of a toy from a cereal box in a bunch of cereal, which seems like a relatively normal thing with nothing significant to it, however because of the way the photo has been taken it almost gives the toy some sort of meaning. On the right, the photo is of a hand placed flat on the ground facing towards the pinhole camera, but because of the angle, the hand looks really long and big which makes it seem like it’s from a smaller creatures point of view, like an ant.
As the subjects in the image aren’t moving, and because the lighting seems to be quite bright, the pinhole camera was most likely only exposed to light for a short amount of time.
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