Lumen Pinhole

To create this lumen pinhole image I used a cider can to house a single 5x7 sheet of photographic paper. I created the pin hole (hense the name pinhole) with an acupuncture needle as the needles tip is minute and yet strong enough to puncture a hole in the cans side to act as the lens of the can camera. Next you open the can at one end, as close to the rim of the top as possible being careful not to cut your hand on the can or with the tool you decide to use. After you have taken the top of the can off, you need to secure a circle of felt that is about 1-2cm bigger in diameter than the can itself so that it can help create a light proof seal. When placing the light sensitive photographic paper into the can it needs to be done in a dark room due the fact that any light exposed to the paper will result in ruining the paper as the image will just end up as a black over exposed image. Once the paper is in ensure no light gets to it, you then need to seal the end that you opened of the can shut and light tight as well as water tight as the can will be in place for 3 months exposed to the elements. At the time of setting up the can make sure that the can is facing as true south as possible so that you get the sun rising on the left (east), going up at its highest in the middle (south ) and setting on the right (west). As well as the can facing the correct way make sure that it is fixed in place enough that the can will not move in high winds or due to rain as you want the image to come out as clear as possible and with out any movement in it other than the arc of the sun.


The image that I resulted in after 3 months came out a lot better than I expected, as I expected it to come out over exposed or with the suns curve in the wrong place. Instead I ended up with an image that shows the different heights of the suns trajectory and gaps of when the sun was covered by clouds as well as showing outlines of trees and bushes along with the ever so slight different positioning's of one of our cars in the lay-by. Its safe to say I was surprised at how well this pinhole came out. One thing I would change in a way is the place that I set up the pinhole to get different scenery in the end result of the lumen pinhole as the image above was of the road outside my house with the can zip-tied to the down pipe of the guttering to my house. The other thing I would change is how long I would leave the pinhole for as then there would be more arcs of the suns path in the image showing from say winter to the next winter and give a whole year for it to do its thing to show the the area of where the sun has passed through in a year.