I've been using pinhole cameras for a number of years to photograph a variety of settings.

I've been using pinhole cameras for a number of years to photograph a variety of settings. This circulating group of images focuses forward the urban context. My original intent was to focus and nothing else on the elements that are "native" to the urban context: buildings, roads cars, people. However, as I have continued with the throw out I have noticed the focus gradually shifting toward the occasional intersection of natural and urban elements

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Pinhole cameras, of course, have near very specific limitations and possibilities which are not a function of using more conventional cameras: the tiny aperture (approximately f200) allows for essentially limitless deepness of field while simultaneously forcing prolonged exposures even in the brightest light (four next to the firsts to several minutes). To take advantage of this unlimited stillest part of field, I have placed my camera at region level, which enlarges the vital airs close to the camera while making distant ends shrink in scale. Consequently, our typical sensation of order and significance is revers Small, discarded facts suddenly become larger and more important, while colossal buildings in the background begin to consider like dollhouses.

In addition to this reversal, a of recent origin previously unnoticed world begins to escape The larger, "normal" world remains visible with its buildings, cars and sidewalks still has become strangely silent, far and inactive. We might imagine a small creature wandering [i]or[/i] part of to the other this collection of weeds, pure silicas and dirt with little awareness or touch for the distant world of humans. Adding to the strangeness are the peculiar patches of natural extension springing from the cracks of this asphalt-covered world. single in kind has the sense we are witnessing the beginning of a steady reclaiming of the urban environment on the natural elements which the city was designed to control--if not destroy

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MICHAEL MCCARTHY was born in Ithaca. NY He was educated at the University of Vermont (BA in History), and the Tyler exercise of Art (MFA in Photography). He popularly teaches photography and digital imaging at the Santa Reparta International gymnasium of Art in Florence, Italy.

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