Pinholica: A little black cube

When you buy something from Chanel on-line, the receipt and a little thank-you card come in a matte black envelope with their logo glossily embossed on it. How can you not think of making a pinhole camera looking at material like that? I’ve been saving them for years.

What could be more appropriate than a Little Black Cube cut from the same pattern as the Evil Cube. It’s a bit lightweight, sort of like cover stock, but it works if you use some underlying foundation.

The shutters required some custom tailoring so the logo would fit without unsightly seams. This outfit definitely calls for pearl viewfinders.

You don’t want your front to fall down and expose your pinhole. Some stretchy spaghetti straps keep it secure.

At the presentation I did at the Oshkosh Public Museum last month, in the accompanying display of my collection, I wanted to show a pinhole alongside a screen filling micro-photograph of it.

I drilled a .3mm hole. To make the right statement to my audience, I needed to make the best possible pinhole. It was just the right size for the 60mm measurement of the Little Black Cube. I didn’t think a rising pinhole was necessary for this look.

The inspiration for this camera is a tradition of making something special for Sarah for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. One year I didn’t test it first and that turned into a major faux pax. Last year I didn’t get the camera done in time to test. She did take one picture with it and that turned out to be her Pinhole Day choice.

For this year, I started making the camera right after WPPD last year but got involved in a lot of other projects and didn’t finish it until now.

I’d better take the opportunity to test it appropriately.

The shopping bag from her historic visit to the original Chanel Boutique in Paris, with the handles secured with ribbon and festooned with extra camellias.

An arrangement of skin care products.

Another angle of the unopened gifts from last Christmas. This image could only be made with a pinhole. My Canon FD 35mm lens, with about an equivalent angle of view, will only focus down to 35cm and fully stopped down to f22 only manages 10cm of depth of field.