"Pinhole photography is lensless photography. A tiny hole replaces the lens. Light passes through the hole; an image is formed in the camera." - Jon Grepstad

It is an intriguing fact that pinhole photographs are persistently described as "timeless", "haunting", "evocative", "ethereal" or "dreamlike". It may be that pinhole photographs possess subtle visual qualities which speak directly to our elemental visual memory.

Our visual memory is not rich in detail, nor is it in any way "photographic" - it is semantic, i.e. our cognitive system stores the scene as a semantic description, not as a bitmap. This allows scenes to be abstracted to a conveniently economic format as they are stored, effectively filtering out much of the detail.

Canadian photographer Dianne Bos describes it thus: When you remember visiting the Eiffel Tower or the Seine, you tend to block out all the car noises and the swarms of Americans in turquoise jogging suits. You have a soft-focus, black-and-white memory of those places. So when people see a pinhole photograph with all that removed, they say, "Wow, that's how I remember it!"

Alternatively, it may be that we have developed a pictorial language of photographs, by which we learn to associate old photographs with soft focus and extended depth of field, characteristics which are also typical of pinhole photographs. Some photographers belonging to the early "Pictorialist" movement were influenced by the Impressionist school of painting and deliberately attempted to produce photographs with the atmospheric quality of paintings --- those attempts included some notable pinhole photographs.

Thus we may collectively have learned to interpret pinhole photographs as "timeless" and "ethereal". For comparison, this page shows a modern pinhole photograph by Jon Grepstad, this page shows a pictorialist lensed photograph and this page shows a pictorialist pinhole photograph. You are invited to draw your own conclusions.

For our lensless images we use both the classic pinhole and the zone plate, a modern variant which has a pinhole at the centre of several closely-spaced, clear concentric rings, gradually increasing in diameter and decreasing in thickness at the same time. The zone plate allows more light into the camera and reduces typical exposure times from 20s to 2s, it also imparts a pronounced "ethereal" glow to bright areas of the image.

One of the key elements of pinhole (or zone plate) photography is choosing a subject which renders well as a pinhole. Strong structure usually renders well and we considered that our local piers would be suitable subjects for pinhole images.

Clevedon Pier

Thanks to a heritage grant, the original clean and elegant styling of this 1869 Victorian pier has been carefully restored: uncluttered decks, a pagoda-style pavilion and multi-level landing stages to cope with a 12m tidal range.

An offshore mist mutes the colours, despite the spring sunshine. The dreamlike quality of the zone plate image is sympathetic to this now-quiet survivor of the bustle of the Great Railway Age of late Victorian times where rail travellers, arriving direct from London, could await the steam ferry to south Wales.

The Grand Pier, Weston

This Grade II-listed pier is considered to be the last of the great pleasure piers to have been built. Intended to be one and half miles long to support a steamship service, construction of the first 1,080ft began in November 1903 and a 1,500ft extension was added in 1906. Because of the high tidal range and strong currents only three ships ever successfully moored and the extension was dismantled in 1916. The present pavilion dates from 1933, replacing the original Edwardian music-hall theatre with amusements and cafes.

The pier runs roughly east-west, this southern side is open to the full arc of the sun. A long stretch of sheltered seating and the expanse of planking give the sense of an immense, grounded ocean liner where an occasional waft of muzak provides a faint echo of the crowds of mid-20thC holidaymakers who once thronged her decks.

Welcome to Pinhole and Zone plate, our second online exhibition. We hope you find it of some interest.