Someone told me my pinhole photographs gave them a feeling like a pencil sketch: quiet, cold, lonely and empty of people, not like the old me. Did this change in my photographs mean I had changed too? In fact, it's just that I wanted to escape for a while from technical, journalistic photography and return to my starting point, to think again about photography and myself. To change one's deep-rooted personality is easier said than done, and after all we can't start life again from the beginning. But I just hope that the simpler relationships are between people and people or people and things, the better they can be. That's how a pinhole camera is: it doesn't have complicated precision components, but it can create a space which fills one with imaginings.

Vincent Yang

Born 1958 in Ilan, Taiwan

Graduate of World College of Journalism Television and Broadcasting Department

MA in Image and Communication from Goldsmith's College, London

Career: Photographer for the GIO's Free China Journal

Photographer for Sinorama magazine

Photographer for Business Weekly magazine

Photographer for Global Views Monthly magazine

Part-time photography teacher at Hua Kang Art High School

Currently Photo Editor for PC home magazine

Photo:

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Huangshan, Anhui

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Huangshan, Anhui

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Zhouzhuang, Jiangsu

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Ilan, Taiwan

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Pingtung, Taiwan

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Chichi, Taiwan

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Yehliu, Taiwan

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Kinmen, Fukien

Pinhole Camera Fact File

Many people know that photography was invented in France in 1839, but the principle behind photography-that of an image cast through a pinhole-was known as long ago as 400 BC in China's Warring States period, when it was discovered from natural optical phenomena by Mo Di (c. 468-376 BC), the founder of the Mohist school in Chinese philosophy, and his followers. It is described in the ancient book Mozi, as the third of "Mozi's eight principles of optics," which describes how light passing through a small hole casts an inverted image.

In keeping with this principle, any enclosed space can be made into a "pinhole camera" by piercing a small hole in it. Rays of light passing through the pinhole cause a vertically and laterally inverted real image of the object in view to fall onto the surface opposite it, as illustrated in the diagram above.

The following example shows how to calculate the relative aperture (f number) of a pinhole camera: If the pinhole diameter is 0.5 cm and the distance between the pinhole and the film is 75 cm, we divide 75 by 0.5 to get a relative aperture of f-150. The smaller the pinhole, the longer the exposure time needed, but if the pinhole is too small it will produce a diffraction effect. The correct exposure time can also be estimated with the help of an ordinary light meter, or one can build up one's own set of data by experimenting repeatedly with different light sources and using films with different characteristics.

Modern photographic equipment is easy to operate, and has developed to the point of foolproof "point-and- click" cameras which anyone can use. But these cameras are assembled from high-precision components and are actually anything but simple. So rather than just going on using high-tech products without thinking, why not try for yourself using the wisdom of our ancestors, and make a simple pinhole camera? I'm sure it can give you an immense sense of excitement and achievement.

（drawing by Tsai Chih-pen）