Through the Pin-Hole...

The Pin Hole Camera half made
by Jo Howell

After a long while trying to remember the smell of the dark room I finally purchased some chemicals and began to have a play around. Where my studio is in Creative Cohesion there aren't really the proper conditions for creating a dark room, but when has that ever stopped me?

The finished camera
By Jo Howell

Late yesterday evening I came into the studio mixed up my developer, stop bath and fix to the correct temperatures, and set about to find out if it were feasible for me to try a new darkroom project. First I had to make the area as light tight as possible, there were some minor light leaks into the room but as far as I can tell nothing that would effect the print.

Photogram paper test
By Jo Howell

Then I had to figure out if the paper I still have left over from University (2008) would actually work. To do this I figured some quick simple photograms would suffice. I need to see if the paper was still reactive so I could then start testing it in the pin hole camera.

Luckily for me the paper was still absolutely fine, which has saved me outlaying another £80 for my tests. I did the photograms without an enlarger and simply used a hand held flash to expose the paper. The exposures are all over and the photograms are not the best, but the test run showed me several things:
Yes, I can create a functional dark room in Cohesion with a little more refinement.
Yes, the paper works.
Yes, the pin hole camera is light tight apart from the hole.

The tests
By Jo Howell

Now that I know these basic things I can seriously begin to sink my teeth into some more work, starting with figuring out the exposure times for the camera!

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