Capturing Time with Pinhole Cameras

March 11th, 2013

The pinhole camera is one of the simplest photographic instruments available.

Photographer Matthew Allred doesn’t let the pinhole camera’s simplicity limit his work. 

Borrowing the French term ‘Heliography’ to describe the process, Allred painstakingly constructs his own cameras and also carefully formulates his own chemistry to make his work possible. 


More specifically, Heliography is, according to Allred, “a photographic process that utilizes pinhole cameras and ultra long exposures, ranging from 24 hours to 6 months. The resulting images are landscapes which feature the path of the sun. In the longer multi-month exposures the Sun’s path can be seen shifting with the seasons.”

Significantly, Allred’s work makes an important statement about photography and its role in the capturing of time. He mentioned that usually, photographers tend to turn to the latest camera technology to capture fractions of time.

On the other hand, capturing detail that only long exposure can deliver has photographers going back-to-basics, making the simple pinhole camera, ever relevant.

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