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Northeast Ohio Group Joining Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day

This portrait of Alexandru Patatics was taken with a modified digital camera

Some Northeast Ohio photographers are setting aside their digital cameras and cellphones, this weekend, and getting back to the basics.  ideastream's David C. Barnett has details on the local observance of Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

A pinhole camera is one of the most basic photographic devices --- all you need is a sealed, black box with a small hole on one side that exposes a piece of photographic film inside.  For the past 15 years, photographers around the world have submitted shots to Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, using these home-made cameras.  Romanian artist Alexandru Patatics is organizing a Cleveland-area observance.

ALEXANDRU PATATICS: The pinhole camera has a kind of specific soul, and you have to adapt to it, in order to control it, and in order to obtain the right image.

Patatics is in Northeast Ohio as part of the Cleveland Foundation's Creative Fusion program, which brings international artists to the region.  This Sunday, he and his partner Andree Voroneanu are setting up a studio space in the basement of Rising Star Cafe in Little Italy, where they will explain the basics of pinhole photography to anyone who wants to participate.

ANDREE VORONEANU: And they go outside and expose the camera, and then we can go inside and develop the images

Those images will then be uploaded to the Pinhole Photography Day website, joining thousands of old school pictures from across the globe.

David C. Barnett was a senior arts & culture reporter for Ideastream Public Media. He retired in October 2022.