workshop: pinhole camera

Media: photography
Date: March 2009 – August 2009
Location: Burj al-Shamali camp / Beit Atfal Assoumoud Center
Facilitator: Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh and Hamada Mahmoud al-Joumah
Participants - Doaa Ali Al-Sheikh, Fadi Hayel Soleiman, Fatmeh Radwan Sleiman, Hamada Mahmoud al-Joumah, Ibrahim Youssef Freih, Mahmoud Ahmad Abdallah, Nesreen Kamal Musherfih, Rakan Abdel Rahman Khalil, Umayma Mohamed Zamil, Wassim Ali Said and Yasser Mohamad Ibrahim

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background

It has been eight years now that I’m involved in an ongoing photography project called “A photographic conversation from Burj al-Shamali Camp”, which is an open-ended exchange on the visual memory of the Burj al-Shamali Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. Herein is a two-part project that involves both producing photographic work with a group of young people from the camp, and research that aims to gather and preserve family and studio photographs from the camp community itself.

For this initial project, I used analogue point and shoot cameras. Only many occations I noticed that the partipants failed to grasp the fact that essential element of a photograph was light.

After meeting Diana Keown Allan, who told me about Lens on Lebanon and who offered me the possibility to do a workshop within their framework, I decided to return to the basic notions of photography and proposed to install a darkroom at the Beit Atfal Assoumoud center in Burj al-Shamali camp. Abu Wassim, the director of the center was encouraging our initiative and left us the keys of an old kitchen to install our lab.

The plan was to build and use our own self-made pinhole cameras, and than develop the black and white negatives (on paper) in the darkroom.

the group

The group of young people who took part of this project were boys and girls of ages ranging from 13 to 32. The group was dubious about the pinhole cameras, but curious to see how they worked.

self-made pinhole cameras

After an introductory session giving a simple idea of the history of photography and the elementary idea of optics, we started building our cameras. Every participant had brought his own box, each of a different size. Some had brought empty cartons from the neighbouring shops, others had brought cans of coffee and preserves.

We spent three days cutting and gluing our boxes then painting them black. To make the pinhole we used pieces of aluminium from empty cans which we pierced with a very thin needle then flattened the surface with sandpaper. Once the cameras where lightproof, some were decorated with individual designs.

the darkroom

The following two sessions where dedicated to the installation of the darkroom. Walls were covered with black cloth and black cardboard was pasted on doors and windows. The participants started getting familiar with all tools and than learned how to mix the developer, stop bath, and fixer. Finally we established some rules to keep the darkroom clean and operational.

first pictures

The day on which we would all charge our cameras with photo paper in the darkroom finally arrived. The participants were very excited. We went out together to take the first pictures. All wanted to take group photographs. One after the other they positioned their camera and exposed their paper. The ones with bigger boxes tried exposure times around 2min 30 sec and 3min, and the ones with smaller ones tried exposures between 20 and 50 seconds.

The young were happy because they could be the photographer of the picture and had the time to join the group to be in the picture they were taking.

Looking at the first negatives together, the young found out that the photographer who joined the group to be on the picture later was transparent. They also could see the difference of movement of the camera, and movement of the subject. The next negatives taught them of exposure times. Every one started to know how long the exposure for his box, was in strong sunlight, in the shade or inside a room. They couldn’t believe, an indoor photograph would take them about 12 min. It seemed too long for them, as no one had the patience to do a well-exposed indoor photography.

the positive

The participants didn’t know that the pictures they were producing were negatives exposed on paper. This is why, at first, they found their photographs “bizarre” because they were seeing it as a negative. It is only after scanning them and inversing them to positive images through Photoshop that notions like negative and positive made sense to them. They also discovered the essential component in the making of a photograph which is light and its influence on the photograph.

working independently

During the following weeks the participants were free to come to the darkroom and work independently. Some of them were very assiduous, taking photographs and experimenting with their cameras and the light. They tried to realise a series of images on a subject they had chosen including: the presence of trees in the camp; rubbish; and movement though alleys.

Some were less motivated and found preparing the chemistry, cleaning the darkroom to take only one or two photographs per session was too much effort.. Even though we organised several meetings with them, they didn’t come back.

legacy

This workshop allowed us to install a darkroom that is now continuously used by some of the participants. This summer it will be used throughout the summer by kids from the camp who will build pinhole cameras and learn to take photographs with them. Hopefully with time the darkroom will be a space for creative working lead by a group of our workshop participants.

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