Justin quinnell pinhole photography

Justin Quinnell is a master at making weird and wondrous pinhole photographs. He recently worked as the Pinhole consultant for the movie ‘The Brothers Bloom’ and his cameras are featured in the film. We took the opportunity to talk to him about his Hollywood experience and fascination for pinhole photography.

How did you first get introduced to the world of pinhole photography?

I’m not sure if this has much relevance but when I was 4 I had several operations on my eyes to sort out something. I remember having a patch on one eye with a small hole to see through. I also remember a fairly unsuccessful experiment when I was at school. It was well after my degree however that I got hooked. I was head of the photography department at a non-too affluent area of Bristol, the kids couldn’t afford cameras, (but could afford several cans of coke every day) so I got them to make cameras out of their drink cans and got hooked myself. It was all pre Internet, so apart from the pinhole journal and a few obscure magazines I didn’t know anyone else who was doing that kind of work.

What is it about pinhole photography which most fascinates you?

There is no viewfinder, it clashes art and science after a 150-year schism, a lot happens in pre-visualising the images, elements of time, astronomy, wonder etc. etc. etc. (This is what I go on about for hours in my lectures!). It’s also cheap, and it’s anti-commercial. I am involved with the Green Party and was getting disillusioned with photography and the amount of destruction it can cause – pin-holing gets around this.

It’s also delving into the unknown, a bit like riding a unicycle – It feels like you are constantly falling, I quite like that!

We hear you worked on the recent film ‘The Brothers Bloom’ as ‘Pinhole Consultant’ – Could you tell us a little about it?

I had a phone call from Belgrade whilst on a train from the University of Falmouth where I t

Photographer Justin Quinnell says he has a lot of crazy ideas and not enough time to try them all.

But one day more than a decade ago, he started thinking about a pinhole camera he had, about 3 inches across, which he figured was nearly indestructible. You could drop it off bridges, he said, or attach it to windshield wipers. Or put it in your mouth. So that’s what he did. He hasn’t looked back.

“I love it because it’s really quite uncomfortable and that’s fine. Some pictures are a bit contrived. Others are accidental flukes. Some are a bit unnerving. Others, I’ll never forget taking them.”

Like the one he took lying down on the floor of the Guggenheim, smiling at the ceiling to capture the spiral ramp. Or the one he tried to take when he put corn in his mouth along with the camera, hoping to attract and photograph pigeons. Or the one in the hospital, when his wife was giving birth to their son.

“I have a very open-minded wife,” he said. “But the photo didn’t come out. It was a shame.”

It’s a tough trick to pull off well. He says he takes between 15 and 20 images of a subject with what he calls “The Smileycam” before he gets a few that he likes, and he’s learned to tape a bit of cellophane on the back of the camera to prevent saliva from dribbling into the film. Having a big mouth helps, he said.

But anyone can do it, Quinnell said, with some 110 film and patience. You can also learn the process on his website or attend one of his classes in New York or D.C. next month.

Quinnell has made a career of pinhole photography since 1989 and the joy of it, he said, is experimenting. He has a shed near his house, he said, containing nearly 200 cameras made from regular objects. Right now, he’s trying to make a wearable pinhole camera out of cardboard.

“That’s the way pinhole photographers work,” he said. “We don’t really think in terms of subjects. We find objects and then we think, ‘What would hap