Isaac Newton once said that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It's all about energy.
Many years ago I bought a small digital camera, a compact Leica D-Lux 3. I never paid much attention to digital photography; for years, my passion was experimenting with various combinations of films and developers while satisfying my childish obsession with using different photographic equipments.
The truth is the little D-Lux became a daily companion. I was precisely falling into the temptation of the Photography Devil: the ease and convenience of digital. I wasn't alone; many friends from the analog days were going through the same.
And so it went, I gradually abandoned analog and surrendered to digital — a "Sign 'O' The Times" as Prince would say or "Go With the Flow" as the Queens of the Stone Age.
After the Leica D-Lux 3 died of exhaustion I was devastated. It was/is so difficult for me to find a camera that feels right in my hands that I felt a bit lost and after analysing the situation I had three options:
1 - To buy another D-Lux 3.
2 - Go back to analog and forget these modernities.
3 - To buy the new, at the time, Leica X-1. The so-called leap forward.
This contender chose option number 3, and off I went, acting all smart, to buy the new and beautiful Leica X-1.
I wanted to love that object; it was beautiful, simple, equipped with a superb lens but after two weeks of use I concluded that it was too slow. There was no process of self-persuasion that could make me keep the X-1. It was beautiful, I wanted to love it, but I couldn't stand it.
I was very sad and angry with myself, with the world, with photography and I decided to give up. I can be overly dramatic sometimes and must have made such a sad scene that the Photography Gods decided to come to my aid by putting two people in my path whose talent and inspiration led me to rediscover my passion for photography through what is known as pinhole photography.
I already knew what pinhole photography was, in college it was mandatory to build pinhole cameras to understand the basic principles of the relationship between aperture and exposure time, however, these two people made me see the aesthetic and creative potential of this type of photography, elevating it to a level that had clearly eluded me. The first person was the talented Wayne Mackeson and the second one my dear friend Nhung Dang.
Property of Nuno Correia.
So I made another decision: to sell the unfortunate Leica X-1 and to buy a Zero Image 2000 pinhole camera. If at the time the X-1 was the pinnacle of compact digital cameras, the Zero Image was the absolute return to lo-fi, to the purity and simplicity of the processes.
If digital was the action, pinhole was the reaction. It was my way of countering technology and returning to the roots.
Many times after leaving the studio following a day of photographing watches, grabbing the pinhole and going out to shoot served as an antidote to technology.
While professionally I was increasingly seeking sharpness and clarity, using the pinhole I sought precisely the opposite: the ambiguous.
Due to its characteristics the pinhole will always shake at some point, especially if you hold it with your hands like I do. In the studio, every care is taken to ensure nothing moves during the exposure.
In the studio there is an obsession with control, with the pinhole it’s about surrendering that control.
In the studio I seek the seductive pragmatism of creating a visual product, with the pinhole I am drawn to the poetic side of the uncertainty in each exposure.
This was the action/reaction dynamic that naturally manifested and led me to use my beloved Zero Image 2000 for many years and on many adventures before I gifted it to, precisely, Nhung.
I couldn't finish these rambling thoughts without sharing another talented pinhole photographer, the amazing Stefan Killen.
© Zero Image cameras
© Zero Image cameras
© Zero Image cameras
© Zero Image cameras
Pinhole is still magic.
If anyone is interested in learning more about pinhole photography I would be happy to help. Just drop me a line.