HYDERABAD : While new-age photographers fancy high-end cameras for their exceptional features to capture stunning images, a few photographers like Mulpuri Raghava Chandra Sathish experiment with their professional cameras to understand the basics of photography like lighting and shadows. In the recent photo exhibition “Photo Fantasy” held at Icon Art Gallery, Sathish showcased the intricate beauty of pinhole photography.
Pinhole photography is a type of photographic imagination. This method creates distinctive photos with a broad depth of field, soft focus, and frequently extended exposure times. It uses a camera without a lens and with a narrow aperture (pinhole). These characteristics can give the images a surreal, dreamy feel, giving rise to an ethereal ambiance that is ideal for a photo fantasy theme. The inherent faults and lack of precise control in this art form can provide creative and unexpected results. Unusual angles, light flares, and blurred edges may turn ordinary situations into fanciful and mystical scenes, inspiring creativity and mystery.
Using just the camera body of a Canon 6D Mark II (DSLR), Sathish explored different themes like landscapes and architecture. “Pinhole photography is the basis of photography, and all cameras from SLRs to DSLRs are manufactured based on this concept. So I wanted to photograph in the natural environment without artificial lighting or adjustments. I wanted to find out how far the picture can be recorded, especially in the generation of sensor technology,” he explained.
He showcased images that took more than a minute to capture, yet the quality with respect to light and detail in both highlighted and shadow areas was remarkable. This is not easy to achieve in a single picture with conventional photography. “In this technological era, the aperture can be set to 11, 16, and maybe 32 depending on the range of cameras. Pinhole photography, however, has f-stops ranging from 152 to 190. So just imagine where f-stop 22 is, and then it is 195. This demonstrates the depth of focus it can create and the creative possibilities it offers.”
Sathish explored Andhra Pradesh—Kadapa, Araku, and visited Ajanta Ellora caves, during different seasons. “It took four years for me to finish this project; I started this journey in 2021. There were a lot of challenges in the process. When I went for landscapes, there will be a breeze; you need to understand how to control it and how much time it will take, and what kind of feel the picture is going to give. When I went for architecture, people would pass by and comment, and there are people in some of these images, but you cannot identify them because of the exposure.”
Sathish mentions few key points which he learned in the process,“There is no scope for editing these images, so you have to be well-prepared for the pre-production work. It requires a lot of patience to click images since it takes three to four seconds to minutes to capture one image. Additionally, pinhole photography is a wonderful opportunity for beginners to learn the fundamentals of photography like handling a camera and how to look at the subject. It demands a lot of time, especially in situations where we cannot use a tripod.”
With experience in teaching courses in photographic design, image making, and video editing in the Department of Photography at Dr YSR Architecture and Fine Arts University, Kadapa, and other film schools and design institutions, Sathish says pinhole photography benefits contemporary artists and students by teaching fundamental principles of light, exposure, and camera mechanics. The slow, deliberate process promotes mindfulness and a deeper connection to the subject, enhancing the overall photographic experience.