Stanislaw Chomiciki, pinhole Towers - Palazzo Mora -

Pinhole Towers – City of Frankfurt

Stanislaw Chomicki, a Polish photographer living in Frankfurt, Germany, is working with a very special camera, a kind of camera that is lately expe- riencing quite a renaissance – a pinhole camera.
This simple photographical device consists of a plain closed box with a tiny hole in it, not bigger than the tip of a needle – a pinhole. Through this tiny hole the picture finds its way from the outer world to the film material inside and projects an upside-down picture. The camera can literally be a simple blackened box.
Time
The latest cameras are able to take several pictures per second. Today pic- tures are taken fast and rapidly, thus mirroring our accelerated way of life. The flood of pictures seems unstoppable. The art of observing is left behind.
The individual work with only one motif loses ground to the never-ending search for more and more pictures. Instead of simply shooting away, the pinhole camera forces the photographer to concentrate on the essence of photography.
With the high amount of work involved in each picture, the usual outpour of quantity is no longer possible. The demands of quality take over – com- position and light reenter the center stage.
The final picture is no longer defined by “the right moment“ but by a sum of right moments, which can consist of several minutes or even long patience-exercising hours.
Space
Compared to pictures taken with a focusing camera, the pictures taken with a pinhole camera are slightly blurred.
On the other hand, the depth of focus covers the whole picture, completely independent from the distance to the photographed object.
Furthermore, there is a slight overexposure, which gives the pinhole pic- tures a mysterious aura. The space is depicted in a highly individual and unique way that cannot be achieved with any other camera.
Existence
Analogue photography has undoubtedly been seen as an impartial repro- duction of reality. This claim for truth no longer works with digital photog- raphy. Too high is the potential for manipulation, too artificial seem most of the digital pictures which surround us in our daily lives.
Together with the analogue photography, the impartial reproduction of reality is about to vanish into thin air.