Statement

While attending The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I was introduced to pinhole photography. The assignment was given to our first year photography class as an introduction to photography. After the critique, my professor pulled me aside and asked me to continue photographing with my pinhole camera the rest of the semester, that was seven years ago.

There is an underlying purpose in all that we do and all that we create. For some, it is easy to place in words what it is that they have created, for others, the beauty of their work speaks for them. My work, my art, my world recorded is my unspoken word. Some look at it and feel, understand and comprehend this silent language; others question and look for answers within my voice or my written words. Neither is right or wrong.

Pinhole photography for many people is very difficult to understand. Why, when technology has perfected how we can photograph, would someone insist on a camera they have constructed? Why, when this box that they call a camera is flawed, offering soft images and distortion. I can only answer, because the world in which I photograph is one that records time, it doesn�t steal a moment or capture a moment, but records time slowly. I rely on a few different cameras, for each camera records drastically differently. Each lens differs and conveys a different message to the viewer. Where one lens is perfectly sharp and practically flawless, another records soft dream-like images. Where one may take 2 1/4 by 2 1/4 pieces of photographic paper as negatives, another may take 4 x 5 sheet film. No matter what pinhole camera I use, each speaks my language. The language of passion for a photographic process that although it is now seeing a resurgence, is still greatly misunderstood.

The majority of my pinhole work is recorded onto photographic paper. The only manipulation that takes place, occurs before the camera, while the image is being recorded. Slow movements, even breathing, altars the clarity of the image; I rely on such things in creating my work.

Melissa Joi Slepekis