Making a Clay Pinhole Camera – Saturday 4th July

Description

Making a recycled clay pinhole camera and developing images using a handmade, plant-based developer with Eileen White

Experience level: Basic photography skills would be useful, but not mandatory

Date: Saturday 4th July – 10:30 – 16:00 (to include 40 min lunch break)

Cost: £85 /per person to include all materials.

On the day: Participants will be given a short presentation about the process and Eileen’s practice.

Practical session: 

• Everyone is to cut a small hole in their vessel and attach a piece of foil. This will have a small drilled aperture/hole.
• We will make a ’shutter’
• Eileen will guide everyone on how to use the darkroom
• We will make our own chemistry from foraged plant matter
• Eileen will show everyone how to load the pinhole camera with light-sensitive photographic paper
• How to take a picture outside
• Return inside and develop the images which will be in a negative format
• The final stage will be turning these negatives into positives using an enlarger

• After used as cameras, the tubes could be wetted down and reused with your clay .
• They could be imbedded with seeds and planted
• They could be biscuit fired, filled with clay/sawdust mix, holes pushed in and use for solitary bees
• The pin Hole could be filled, fired to glaze temp, used as a tester or for a single flower

Outline: Explore the world of slow photography through this ancient form of image making. The art of pinhole photography is a simple camera-less, lens-less technique that uses a light-proof container with a tiny hole to project an inverted image onto light-sensitive paper or film. This workshop will give you some background about this fascinating analogue technique and lead you through how to make your own camera from clay, which will be recycled afterwards. The day will also include foraging and creating your own plant-based chemistry, which will be used in the darkroom to develop your magical images.

About Eileen: Eileen White works within the expanded field of analogue photography, site-specific installations and artist books to explore and make visible her experience of being in a specific landscape, alongside an awareness of our entanglements to place, time and in particular, our impact on the Earth.

Researching alternative ways to think about her relationship with the Earth that are less environmentally destructive, she uses an ethical and caring framework to create slow, repetitive, low-tech print and photographic works. Her processes interweave an embodied methodology that is often uncalibrated, such as making alternative chemistries from plants, using waste materials to make printing substrates and cameras, alongside composting and gardening.

For more information about Eileen: Eileen White