The dark magic of pinhole photography using biscuit tins 📌📷

Jude Keogh's tin cameras look like antiques dusted off from your grandma’s shelf. What were once food containers have been transformed into the simplest of photographic tools - pinhole cameras.

Their bright colours, odd shapes and imperfections give these cameras personality and set them apart from their digital cousins. They even have names. Willow Cam once held biscuits. Bundy Cam was a fudge tin. The smallest is called Chicken-Spamera.

With no buttons, viewfinder or lens you’d hardly think each one was capable of recording images. But Jude now uses them to capture wispy, eerie photographs of the landscape around her.

“I really like people to actually have a look at the landscape and take notice of what’s going on and appreciate how much it has to do with our well-being,” she says.

Whilst setting up for a shot on the roadside, Jude‘s novel tools will often draw curiosity from people passing by.

Locals are more used to seeing her rush around town as a photojournalist for a country newspaper. The face-paced nature of her work means snapping shots on a bulky digital SLR camera, rushing back to the office then uploading the images to meet the daily print deadline.

In contrast, pinhole photography is Jude's meditation. She calls it 'slow photography'.

“Pinhole photography takes a lot more time, it tests out every one of your skills as a photographer, which I really enjoy, and it creates really nice, nostalgic, beautiful, old-time images,” says Jude.

Taking a photo with a pinhole camera is simple. A hole pierced in one side acts as the camera’s aperture. Black plastic tape covers this hole, acting like a shutter. Jude removes the tape, exposing light onto the film or photographic paper placed inside at the opposite end of the tin.

Each exposure can take anywhere from a couple of seconds to over a minute, depending on the available light. There's no light meter. A great image comes from extensive trial and error.

This art also requires patience. Jude's images come to life long after she has taken them - going against the grain of today’s digital photography practises which deliver instant results.

The satisfaction of seeing the final images, after such a lengthy process, is certainly worth the wait.

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