picture of the day

Saint Mary Redcliffe Church, Bristol, UK.
December 19th 2007 - June 21st 2008.
pin hole camera, 6 month exposure, by justin quinell

"One of the many qualities of pinhole photography is its ability to capture time durations of beyond our vision. Usually this is in the range of a few seconds, but by combining old and new technologies, it is possible to achieve exposures of far greater duration. I have always been fascinated with astronomy, its immense scales of space and time reaching far beyond comprehension within our own short instances on Earth.

The project was to record views of Bristol, with the sun trailing across the sky from the winter solstice (22nd December) to the summer solstice (the 20th of June). The technique is not new. Several people are currently doing similar work. Paolo Gioli in Italy and Tarja Trygg in Finland are both experts in this area. I just wanted my hometown of Bristol to be imaged in this way. Accessible wonder is all the reason I need.

Most of the cameras survived 6 months of wind, rain, hail (and being thrown in the bin!). Several were blank; one was full of water, (the emulsion on the photographic material having floated off.) and one, still exposing, currently sits inaccessibly under 10 foot of bramble, waiting forever to be recovered."