One of my favorite ways to create images is using a pinhole camera. Long exposures and infinite depth of field are the aspects of pinhole that allow me the expression I desire in my photographs. The long exposures offer the opportunity to incorporate motion, representative of the passage of time, moment to moment, and from one place to the next. Infinite depth of field helps tweak reality by distorting size relationships and often shape. The ability to make a photograph that doesnʼt quite mesh with waking life but rather illustrates the realms of the subconscious, dreams, memory and the underlying energy of creation, is what pinhole is about for me. 

Inkjet prints on board with encaustic treatment (wax/resin/inclusions); photos on goyu paper, dipped in encaustic medium; encaustic paintings

I have done a couple of year long projects, taking a pinhole self portrait everyday.  Once when I was fifty and once when I was fifty-five.  In the second effort, I never even finished processing my film...my life had experienced a profound shift and I just didn't have the motivation to complete the project.

Just recently I've returned to processing this four year old film.  The quality of my negatives is somewhat degraded because of time, but surprisingly that makes the images more interesting to me.  I'm finding myself intrigued by the past work in this series and not only do I want to finish what I started, I'd like to continue in this vein, perhaps finally getting into the darkroom to print the work.

It's a weird thing, self portraiture.  I think those of us who practice the form do so for different reasons.  For myself, it's to get a new perspective, to see my self in my world in unique and interesting ways.  And as always, pinholes can reveal the spirit of a moment, which is always curious and sometimes enlightening.