Greetings friends,

 

Photography has been an important hobby of mine since the mid 1960's, when I started with traditional silver-based black and white processes. Since then, I've also explored numerous "alternative" processes such as pinhole photography and cyanotypes.

 

My idea for this project was to find the simplest and most direct photographic process possible. For the camera, I chose to use a pinhole design. To create a positive in-camera print, I chose Ilford/Harman Direct Positive printing paper.

 

The combination of a pinhole camera and an in-camera positive print is notable for its absolute directness. Light from the scene passes unimpeded through a hole (literally nothing) and on to the silver halide crystals in the print emulsion. There is no lens, no lens settings, no negative, and no opportunity for manipulation. The resulting print is an unadulterated and unique artifact of the exposure event which cannot be duplicated.

 

I thought it would be fun to have the camera capture depth information (3-D) in the scene as well. I designed the camera to have two pinholes, so that the print would be a stereo pair for viewing in a standard stereo viewer.

 

The resulting prints have exceeded my expectations. They may not be "good" photographs in an artistic or technical sense, but I set aside my biases and accept the prints on their own terms. The prints invariably reveal aspects of the original scene that I hadn't noticed before, and they all have that slightly uncanny aura unique to pinhole photographs. I find myself getting "lost" in the stereo images, exploring every detail and feature much more than I do with a conventional photograph. Even the most mundane scenes take on a fascinating quality.

 

After several months of developing this camera and process, I thought it would be a good idea to share my project and ideas through this website. I invite you to explore the project with the row of menu items at the top of the page. I hope you enjoy what I've presented here, and that it inspires you to pursue your own experiments. Feel free to email me if you have any questions or comments.

 

Ulf Axmacher

stereopinhole@fastmail.com