David Cugnasca Pinhole
Photography
Using a wooden hinged box, a cardboard box and even a black plastic
mailbox, that is how I began to learn how to make pinhole cameras and
pinhole photographic images. Those were my first homemade cameras.
Years ago I was taught and shown that you can make a camera out of any
light tight container with a tiny pin hole, centered in a piece of tin.
A piece of black tape acts as a shutter while light-sensitive paper
carefully placed inside the “camera” is exposed to the light. In terms
of technique, I learned how to build my own cameras and the method of
using photosensitive paper as negatives inside my camera.

The pinhole process challenged and changed my total view of the
artistic imagery of photography. Here, in my pinhole world, there are
no lenses or automatic exposures. It is a world of trial and error and
chance. This is a form of photography that goes back to basics. It is
where it all began hundreds of years ago.

Creating a successful black and white negative from which to print a
positive image requires patience, skill, and natural light. Over the
years I feel the intensity of the light and the seasons from the sun.
The seasons and placement of the sun are very important to exposure
time. Pinhole photographs can have a fairly “traditional” perspective
(one similar to that perceived by the human eye), a slightly
“wide-angle” perspective, a “telephoto” perspective, or a much more
distorted, or “twisted” perspective, depending on the shape of the box,
and the position of the negative inside the box. After my first year
of working with this process, I started using a light-tight film
changing bag that offers me the freedom to walk or drive to any
location to spend time and capture many pinhole images for hours year
round.

I have mastered my own technique. I now have the understanding and
awareness required to create successful images in terms of exposure,
time of day and the infinitesimal differences in the diameter of the
pinhole or camera created and used. I have managed to create my own
“vision” through my pinhole works.

People have said my landscapes have an almost meditative or mournful
quality. My seascapes have been said to emit the feeling of mid-day
heat in summer. I worked on my “Pier Series” for over three years. I
have an attraction to the pier study. What is on my web site is only a
small portion of what I have documented in a tribute to the Old
Reliable Pier in Provincetown, Massachusetts, which unfortunately is in
the process of being dismantled.

My photographs have been recognized in exhibits juried by: Jock
Reynolds, Curator and Director of the Henry B. Heinz III, Yale
University Museum and Curator and Director, Joseph Ketner II, of the
Rose Museum at Brandeis University.

The mystery of pinhole imagery for me is, when shooting a photograph, I
have no idea if it will be an image that is exposed correctly, an image
I want to keep or share. The physical surroundings, the light
conditions around me and the element of chance are all important
ingredients in this creative process. I am very happy to share with
you my pinhole images.

Light is a beautiful thing.