What I liked most about the two readings this week were the very different ways that both articles collide disparate things. Michael Potter combines pottery and photography, while Marissa Fessenden’s article about David Janesko and Adam Donnelly combines nature and photography.
Potter’s article offered an overview of the history of pinhole cameras. He starts with the history of the camera obscura and then introduces the uses of pinhole cameras. The article adds an interesting component by talking about the technical differences to consider while making a pinhole camera: he talks about how drilled versus hand-made shims affect the quality of the image (p. 53).
I found the Fessenden article fascinating. As a person who switched from a science to humanities discipline, I’m always thinking about how to merge my two paths. Here, she talks about how David Janesko and Adam Donnelly make art from nature, and this intrigues the part of my brain that studied the environment for so many years.
I find the description of their photography to be very interesting. The article calls their photographs “dreamy” or “misty” in appearance. Later in the article, she talks about their creative process, explaining that often one of the photographers are inside the camera holding the photographic paper up to the pinhole. Just from our conversations in class, this makes me think of just how blurry theses photos must be.
However, the connection between art and nature is what I keep coming back to when reflecting on this article. I especially love the closing sentence: “After they’ve left, the weather and passing creatures (sometimes humans) help it succumb, quickly or slowly but always inevitably, to nature’s whims.”