Pinhole Camera Dreams
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Today, in the era of digital photography, it is getting harder and harder to believe that mistakes could be of value and could have their own charm. To accept with humbleness the results of human weaknesses means to declare the superiority and triumph of the surrounding world. This world, the image of which can be seen in a magnificent, pure and crystal clear way only by God, the very creator of it. In a number of the legends, explaining how one or another method in photography started, there is the idea of the image, appearing out of “nowhere”, of its own free will, in spite of and against the man, who hardly subsequently gained the knowledge and ability to reproduce what had happened. Everything that surrounds us only give us its mark – every time a new one, every time a different one. For the photographer there is only one thing left – to “reveal” the image, to aid the shapes, which look as if they have already existed in advance, to come into sight one after another. The thing which the today’s photography techniques aim at is to erase as much as possible the traces of human imperfection. There is the aspiration after creating an entirely foreseen image, which does not only claim itself a copy of reality, but declares itself superior than the very reality. Photography ceased to be a miracle long ago – it is utterly under the power of our intentions and moods. But for all those, who prefer the meandering and unsure paths in photography, the past offers a whole lot of exciting routes. I found those through the pinhole camera. While the future is impossible to present, frightening and vague, the past is solid, unambiguous and invariable. Here, of value are stillness and silence, not dynamics and screaming figurativeness. The older the photographic processes are, the closer they take us to an older, previous era, to the “divine”, to nature, to the primitive knowledge.
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