Justin Quinnell Transforms His Mouth Into A Pinhole Camera

That’s right, pinhole photographer Justin Quinnell transforms beer cans, glasses and sometimes even his own mouth into a camera exploring photography in its most primitive form. Quinnell challenges himself to capture worthwhile images with limited control and a low-tech instrument resulting in distorted photographs that somehow appear ‘off’ most likely due to their extremely closeup and wide angled perspectives.

A pinhole camera is the simplest camera there is. The often homemade device needs only a few elements: a light proof box, film, and the pinhole, which is just an extremely small hole (like that you’d create with the prick of a pin) in a piece of aluminum foil. This small hole acts as a lens for the camera forcing all emitted light on the chosen object or scene to form on the film.

For more than twenty years, Quinnell has been both practitioner and pioneer in the pinhole medium including a brilliant series called Mouthpiece, a series of photographs taken from inside Quinnell’s mouth which simply include snapshots of his life- going to the dentist, or holding his children. His newer work is taking a bit of a stand against something Quinnell really hates- the perfume industry. Inside the East tunnel of the bear pit in his hometown of Bristol, the exhibition called Awfulogrammes displays a series of wide angled portraits captured through an aluminum beer can placed in Bristol’s beloved bear pit. The portraits are extreme close ups of Bristolians, sometimes of only their noses or mouths causing onlookers to consider their perceptions of reality as the pinhole camera produces a genuine display of reality even though the images appear quite distorted.

The photographer expressed hope that the images would also cause onlookers to questions the beauty industry and the ideals presented through advertising. (Born without a sense of smell, Quinnell takes particular issue with the perfume industry).

The opportunity of combining elements of advertising and distortion seems to fit in with this area as it lies just a few meters away from the ‘asphyxiating labyrinths’ of the perfume departments in the surrounding department stores.

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