Celebrate Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day

Sunday, April 29, 2012, is cause for celebration, as it is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. Pinhole photography can be either very simple or complicated. In its simplest form, it involves using a light-tight box (like an oatmeal container or coffee can, below), inserting either film or photographic paper, and exposing the film to light via a hole with a tiny aperture (ie: the size of the head a of straight pin) that you've made in your container. 

My two homemade pinhole cameras (above) are pretty simple, but some are really lovely and elaborate. I also fashioned a pinhole apparatus from the body cap for my Canon Rebel T2i, which I used to take the below photos. But I quickly discovered that pinhole photography behave differently on a digital sensor. Because of the small size of the sensor compared to a 5"x7" piece of photographic paper, diffraction is much more sever on the sensor, having a very negative effect on the sharpness of the photo.

On Sunday, I'll post some photos I made with my digital pinhole setup.

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, April 24

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is being observed on April 24 this year, but because this falls on Easter the folks at pinholeday.org are also accepting submissions for photos that are taken on April 23 or May 1.

In honor of their efforts, I have attached the below photo, which is one of the more interesting pinhole photographs I have taken (but not for lack of trying).

Photo from a pinhole camera made from Quaker Oatmeal container.