Atelier Bonryu(E)
pinhole photography
Laboratory: Pinhole Photography
History of Pinhole Photography - Recollection
Recollection on pinhole photography: I wonder what was the oldest memory of myself on pinhole photography?
Probably it was the memory when I was a lower grade schoolchild of a primary school or much more younger. It was a morning after snowfall all through the night, when the sun was extremely dazzling. I was maybe sick in a bed because of cold, when I saw a pinhole phenomenon definitely. Light was coming from outside through a knothole of a wooden shelter and the light beam in which dusts were dancing shined a paper sliding door of the room, where the scenery of the outside was projected (An old house built in Japanese style was made of wood and paper!).
Recently I learned that such a phenomenon is called as “koana touei” in Japanese literally translated as “a small hole projection”. At the science lesson of the primary school we learned a pinhole photograph which is translated as “hariana shashin”, the literal translation of the “pinhole photography.” There is a device, “camera obscura”, which is closely related to the pinhole photography. I know the term “camera obscure” since long before. The camera obscura is a device the back-screen of which an image is projected to by lights through a pinhole or a lens set on the front wall of the device, and was used to trace a projected image in order to paint a picture at one time. The camera obscura is thought as the predecessor of a modern camera.
Pinhole projection of Mt. Fuji
The famous woodblock artist of the Edo period, Hokusai Katsushika, published a woodblock print named as “Saiana no Fuji (Mt. Fuji projected through a knothole)” in the illustrated book titled as “Fugaku Hyakkei (100 scenes of Mt. Fuji).” This set off me to depict the left figure. The “Saiana no Fuji” itself will be shown later.
