Commission: Pinhole camera process and final images

For the second part of the commission unit we were given the task to make a pinhole camera and produce a final image. For the pinhole construction workshop we were asked to bring a box around shoe box sized; as I had already made a pinhole camera at A Level I decided to experiment with a different shaped container. I chose a plastic tub I had at home, quite large and cylindrical which I thought would produce a very large image.

Because the tub was see through I decided to prepare it before the workshop by sanding it down, painting it black and taping the whole of the outside up with electrical tape otherwise I would not have got my camera finished that day. When shooting I also made sure the box was light tight by taping around the edge of the lid.

When I showed the tub to Colin he explained that I could make a 360 degree image by attaching a tube to the centre of the lid, attach the paper round the centre and make four pinholes at equal intervals around the outside of the tub which I would then open up at equal times while keeping the box in the same position.

 Used pin to make the pinhole in terms of the distance between outer and inner surfaces to get the correct depth, then used the the pinhole F stop 264 to relate to the dial we were given which gives an exposure time which can be converted from a lightmeter reading with an ISO of 5 which was the closest to the ISO of photographic paper.  

For my final image I decided to feature my families dresses again like my final commission images; but for my pinhole image due to the way the image would flow together I decided to try and create a blurred, ethereal image by using my family as models. My nan modelled with her function dress, my mum with her wedding dress, my sister with her prom dress and me with my christening dress. Unfortunately due to the dull weather conditions, my lightmetter gave me quite slow timing which translated as 4 minutes for my pinhole camera. My relatives were very understanding and happily sat for me for two separate images.    

I was very annoyed when one of the images ripped while I was trying to remove it from the tape in the box however luckily they were both expose correctly. These are my two final images theat I must choose from (positive and negative forms):

I am not sure which image I will choose yet; however I feel that the ripped image is a lot more centralised and more flowing; before definitely picking I have done another print of both with slightly lower exposure time as I feel I lost a lot of the contrast with too long an exposure on the light box of 10 seconds which I reduced to 7 seconds.

Overall I am very pleased with my final images as they are correctly exposed and create the effect I was hoping to achieve with a sort of flowing, connected look between me and my other female relatives. I choreographed all of us to be sat in a similar way with the dresses facing in the same direction. In the bottom images I had everyone look down while in the top images I had everyone look at the camera; again I like the way it looks as if we are confronting the viewer allowing the audience to see our facial features and notice the similarities between us.