It’s a hot Sunday afternoon and the city almost seems like a ghost town. Not a leaf stirs, and even the dogs have made a beeline for the first shady spot they can find. But here I am on the banks of the Cooum in Egmore, armed with a bag of scrap, for an afternoon of creativity and connecting with Nature. As the sweat drips down my brow, I quickly scan my bag to check if I have everything I need to make a pinhole camera, my first ever. Matchbox, check; sharp scissors, check; empty soft drink can, check; emery paper, check; black insulation tape, check; super glue, check; a camera reel, uh-oh! There lies my problem.
Not many photo labs in the city stock camera rolls any more; not since digital cameras invaded the space. Fortunately, Pa Madhavan, the photo artiste who has organised the pinhole camera workshop and photo walk along the Cooum, comes to my rescue.
He imports camera rolls regularly since he is anti-digital technology and loves to stick to the basics (in fact, the artiste covered the previous elections entirely with a pinhole camera fashioned out of a match box and using as many as 50 rolls).
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We walk down the bank, playing hopscotch because of all the trash that has been carelessly tossed, to find a shady spot under an acacia tree. The earth is cracked, and twigs snap under our feet and a strong stench wafts from the dirty green water. But, we manage to find a clearing where we plonk down to gear up for a short talk by Madhavan. As he walks us through the evolution of photography from the camera obscura and daguerreotypes to the later analogue and, finally, the digital era, we busy ourselves preparing to make our pinhole cameras. A bus trundling past, an auto screeching to a halt and birds chirping in the thicket provide the background score.
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Out come the matchboxes, scissors, emery paper and camera rolls. There are a couple of other photography enthusiasts who’ve made their way to the banks of the Cooum, despite the sweltering heat. There’s an easy banter as we cut out the matchbox tray and prepare a small piece of aluminium tin to fashion a pinhole from. It has to be scraped till it is as thin as paper; before you make a tiny prick with a fine sewing needle. But, if the pinhole is any bigger than it should be, you could risk overexposing the film and ruining your photographs. Mine was, and I was back to square one, cutting out a new piece of aluminium tin. This time, I make a pinhole that is barely there. With a little encouragement from Madhavan, I get the size right.
That done, we set about assembling the camera. The pinhole tin is fixed to the front cover of the matchbox with black insulation tape (because you want to cut down any possibility of light entering the camera chamber). We fashion a shutter and tape it all up, before we load the camera with fresh film and fix it to a used spool on the other end. Once again, we seal all the edges and slightest gaps with black insulation tape. I proudly hold in my hands my first-ever pinhole camera. As childish as it may sound, there’s a sense of wonder that I can finally master the principle of light to create images — the old-fashioned way.
I try my hand at pinhole photography with a shot of a tree on the banks of the river. I still have 30 frames to go and I cannot wait to shoot with all of it and develop the film to see how I’ve fared. But will I go back to the Cooum to fill up all those frames? Probably, not. Not in the city at least. Maybe, if I can make my way to the 60-km stretch of the river outside the city where it runs joyfully past verdant banks, and where people celebrate the water body.
A pinhole picture along the Cooum by Pa Madhavan
Why the Cooum
After we finish our workshop, we walk along the river bank to take pictures of the surroundings. This, says Pa Madhavan, is his way of bringing the focus back on a river that has been abused by the residents of the city. “The Cooum runs a course of nearly 72 km; only the 12 km within the city is highly polluted. There’s not a single industry releasing effluents into the river; it is people like you and me who are emptying our dirt here,” he says.
The camera
The device that we have so carefully made boasts an aperture of 90mm and a wide-angle lens. It works great for low-light photography and wide-angle shots.
Fun fact
Want to take a star trails photo? Use a pinhole camera. Just leave the shutter open for six months and voila! You’d have traced the path of stars on film.