Making of a matchbox pinhole camera

In 2011, I stumbled upon this website http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/ and was instantly bought – I just HAD to do try this stuff! Instructions were rather simple, and I felt up to the task.

So, everything was ready to start, as I gathered all of the stuff required. You can see the early stages and almost finished pinhole camera.

The only thing I replaced during the work was the can opener, as I found a better replacement (an opener from a beer cap). I don’t know about your matchboxes, but the ones I had could not be cut perfeclty clean. There were small tears and particles everywhere, which in fact produced an interesting result. The most important thing was the black tape! It keeps the light out (most of it), it makes the setup rigid. If you cut it nicely when you finish, you can reuse the camera several more times (until it falls appart, of course).

This is how it looked in the end:

Thanks http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/  for this interesting project!

And what about the photos? Did I succeed? You’ll be the judge of that, but as far as I’m concerned, the achieved results exceed the expected ones (failure). Check them out below.

Details: The photos in this serieswere all taken using a hand made matchbox pinhole camera I made in September 2011 (see it in another album). Exposures range from 1 second to 20 minutes. Film used was the common Fuji ISO 200 film. The edges of photos were produced by unevenly scalpel-cut matchbox cardboard. The first photo studio scanned the film automatically, which cut off  parts of photos and skipped a few. The second photo studio did the positioning manually so I have everything. Anyway, I am happy to have some results from project, this challenge of mine. I hope you like them and try it out yourself. Anything is possible. Thanks to http://matchboxpinhole.com

#1    Students’ Park

#2  Students’ Park

#3    Students’ Park

#4 Students’ Park gate and Philological Faculty in the background…

#5 Students’ Park gate and Philological Faculty in the background…

#6 Students’ Park

#7    Republic Square, National Museum and Prince Mihailo monument

#8    Greenery

#9    Greenery

#10    Greenery

#11    Mess in the kitchen

#12    These two photos overlapping were cut when scanned, so I reconnected them, regardless of the error.

#13    My love Milica

#14    I want to ride my bicycle

#15    A test shot of the Church of St. Petka, as seen from Milica’s stroller. You can see my finger tips as well 😀

#16    George the cat

#17    George

#18    George the cat moving his head

#19    Walker

#20    From my balcony

#21    Room

#22    Zeleni Venac bus station, and a glimpse of the market

#23    Night shot from my kitchen window. Exposure approximately 20 minutes.

#24    A bit distorted perspective of my living room corner. The face on the wall is usually beautiful.