Pixiq

Thomas Hudson Reeve and his Pinhole Paper Cameras

Thomas Hudson Reeve makes the most amazing cameras ever.  They are unlike anything else. The most wonderful part is that the images are the camera!

The cameras he makes are created by folding photographic paper into a box shape and mounting a pinhole on one side, which he does in total darkness.

His images are a delight and a surprise. You get the sense of a fisheye image that was produced by a square eyed fish. Every surface of the box is exposed to light. Due to the construction method he uses, there is a fair amount of flair and light leaks which add interesting color and light patterns to the overall effect. Like many photographers including this writer, Thomas Hudson Reeve likes the randomness and the unexpected results of this process. The camera is also the developing container. the final processed result is unfolded and laid flat for viewing. Each image is a unique view of the place he photographs as there is no real negative involved in the process. His images are geometric in form due to the folds that are produced by his technique.

Meant to inspire creativity, this is a first of a series of posts for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day about the works of some of the worlds greatest and most innovative pinhole photographers.

Thomas Hudson Reeve has created a unique and beautiful series of very unique imagery by breaking away from the expected.

"The modern camera is a wonderful thing, but it's nice to remember how simple the mechanism can be. You can strip away the technology until there is little left but the abstraction on which the machine is based. A simple manipulation of space, a few materials, and a couple of hand tools and the magic (physics) is at your fingertips without sophisticated engineering.

To simplify these cameras as much as possible I made them out of the 11x14 inch photo-paper itself. There is no film in the camera because the camera is the film. Like a salad bowl made of lettuce leaf, and consumed with the meal, the camera doesn't exist after its utility is fulfilled. There is no machine. It is more of an arrangement than a thing.

Since it is color paper, sensitive to the full spectrum of visible light, there is no "safe" light recommended for darkroom work. Each paper box camera is cut, folded, and constructed in the dark and kept in a dark bag until its moment in the sun has come.

The pinhole in the brass plate is all that is needed to project an image into the inside surface of the box (more on that later), but light also seeps through the cracks and flaps of the box construction and soaks through the black tape that holds the whole thing together. The streaks and burns and flares that appear on the final image are the result of this ambient radiation and although it can be somewhat controlled, it also depends largely on "random" factors." Thomas Hudson Reeve

Read more here…

Here is the link to a wonderful site and his amazing images.

and here!

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