The process of working with pinhole or hand-made cameras has an almost inexplicable appeal for me, one evoking a child-like sense of wonder. The process demands a different understanding of camera optics that promotes complete immersion. While creating crude cameras, I am aware that the same optical process occurs all the time as light is filtered into information first through our eyes and ultimately focused through consciousness.
A pinhole camera is a kind of primitive miniature cave: a dark chamber with only a small opening onto the outside world. In Rabbit Hole, the information recorded on the film's surface is a sort of half-blind, feeble attempt of conveying the space with which one is confronted. The images themselves have evocations that range from the celestial or galactic, to remote feeds from ocean exploration vehicles. The process of illuminating the cave's walls involves a certain level of drudgery and physical discomfort. It also involves a huge amount of trial and error as well as monotonous repetition. In capturing a frame, one has no exact idea of an image's composition. Images are only formed after illuminating the cave's walls often for half an hour or more with a portable spotlight. Even so, exposures may turn out faint or damaged from light leaks or not at all. This Sisyphean process may be a kind of illustration of human frailty and the incomplete nature of perception.
A pinhole camera is a kind of primitive miniature cave: a dark chamber with only a small opening onto the outside world. In Rabbit Hole, the information recorded on the film's surface is a sort of half-blind, feeble attempt of conveying the space with which one is confronted. The images themselves have evocations that range from the celestial or galactic, to remote feeds from ocean exploration vehicles. The process of illuminating the cave's walls involves a certain level of drudgery and physical discomfort. It also involves a huge amount of trial and error as well as monotonous repetition. In capturing a frame, one has no exact idea of an image's composition. Images are only formed after illuminating the cave's walls often for half an hour or more with a portable spotlight. Even so, exposures may turn out faint or damaged from light leaks or not at all. This Sisyphean process may be a kind of illustration of human frailty and the incomplete nature of perception.