Photography by Felix Wessely:
»Urban Pinhole Snapshot Series«

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Themes of the »Urban Pinhole Snapshot Series« are urban scenes, taken as snapshot photographs with a pinhole camera with electronic sensor. This project was started in May 2006.

All photographs of the »Urban Pinhole Snapshot Series« are taken by combining the oldest technology for picture projection with the newest technology in photography: A digital camera with a pinhole instead of an optical lens is used. The pinhole has the same main effect as a lens: The light, which is reflected by the subject, is projected to the screen level, which in a photo camera is a film or an electronic sensor.

Special characteristics. This pinhole camera effect was first documented by Aristotle and was used later for observing astronomic events; e.g. solar spots and solar eclipses because of the darkening effect of the pinhole. Later it was used by painters, which used the pinhole to project the surrounding landscape as a pattern on the canvas.

The photographs, which result from this technique, are unsharp and absolutely linear.

In contrast to a lens that has a focus and therefore sharp and unsharp distance levels in the projection, all the picture elements in pinhole photography - independent from their distance to the camera – are equally portrayed. The smallest point of resolution on the electronic sensor has the size of the pinhole. This results in a suppression of fine details, which means compression to a detail depth that is relevant for the expression of the content. The relatively small electronic sensor supports this intention.

Because of the absolute linearity - which means without bended lines - the resulting picture correlates with the human viewing experience of the original scene. Therefore, there is no irritation in the viewing experience.

The special characteristic of Pinhole photography is the harmony that results from the evenness.

Because of the combination of unsharp detail with long exposure times (which are needed because of the small pinhole) you get snapshots with a kind of slow motion effect.

A style which is relative to this is pictorialism which was developed at the end of the 19th century as pendant to impressionism in art painting as a counter part to the - from a technical viewpoint - perfect photographic images.

Shooting technique - No intervention, nothing is arranged. Common ground for all photographs of the »Urban Pinhole Snapshot Series« is a perspective which correlates with the human perception when looking very interestedly at something. Actually the viewpoint of a child because all pictures are taken at the eyelevel of a child.

Beware, the angle of view for all photographs, are not cropped. Any manipulation by cropping the picture, would narrow the angle of view. Therefore, all pictures have to be finally composed at the time when the picture is taken.

All pictures of the »Urban Pinhole Snapshot Series« are without any exception real snapshots. There is nothing arranged and no intervention of any kind to what happens in front of the camera.

This project was started at end of May 2006. Because of this, there are at the moment only a few pictures available. Photographs from several towns and from each town several pictures will follow. There is no minimum or maximum limit for the number of towns or the number of photographs from each single town.