Twenty Shenzhen photographers are exhibiting their photos using pinhole photography, salt printing or platinum printing at the “Forerunners and Pioneers” exhibition at Shenzhen Fine Art Institute. Entry is free.
Pinhole photography is a simplistic design of a camera without a lens. A pinhole camera can often be made with many readily available items from the home, such as shoe boxes, fizzy drinks cans, match boxes, etc. Pinhole images are softer than pictures made with a lens. The images have a nearly infinite depth of field. Wide angle images remain absolutely rectilinear. Exposures are long, ranging from half a second to several hours. Images are exposed on film or paper.
A photo by Xue Weifeng.
The basic optical principles of the pinhole are commented on in Chinese texts from the fifth century B.C. Chinese writers had discovered by experiments that light travels in straight lines. Philosopher Mo Di was the first to record the formation of an inverted image with a pinhole or screen.
William Henry Fox Talbot worked out how to do salt printing it 1839, by soaking paper in silver iodide salts to register a negative image which, when photographed again, created permanent paper positives. It was one of the earliest ways of creating a photograph. He called it “salt print,” which spread across the globe, creating a new visual language of the modern moment. This revolutionary technique transformed subjects from still objects, portraits, landscapes and scenes of daily life into images with their own specific aesthetic: a soft, luxurious effect particular to this photographic process. The few salt prints that have survived are seldom seen due to their fragility.
“Blooming” by Liao Xianhui
Patented in 1873 by the Englishman William Willis, platinum printing was immediately embraced at the turn of the century by photographers. This entirely hand-made process exceeds all others in its physical beauty and longevity. An image made in platinum will vary in color and intensity from warm dark browns to cold neutral blacks depending on the proportions of the metals used. Because it is composed of pure metal, the platinum process is one of the most stable and archival of any in photography. Unlike other processes in which the image is printed on a surface applied to the paper, the platinum image is literally embedded in the paper itself.
A platinum image by Lin Wenge
Dates: Until June 21
Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m., closed Mondays
Venue: Shenzhen Fine Art Institute, 36 Jinhu Street 1, Luohu District (罗湖区金湖一街36号深圳画院)
Metro: Line 9 to Yinhu Station (银湖站), Exit D and then walk northwestward for 10 minutes