Peeking Through a Pinhole
Kim Henkel takes photography back to its beginnings.
The images seem almost like dreamscapes—visions somehow simultaneously foreign and yet familiar, if not completely identifiable. In one photo, saguaro cacti on the horizon are framed against a stark sky. Light and shadows play tricks with eye and mind. You look a little harder—into the shadows and streams of light—maybe an edge or pattern stands out. Is that a dinosaur's tail?
 |
Kim Henkel at Rejuvenations coffeehouse
in Silver City, where her pinhole photography is on display. Henkel
will offer a workshop series on the technique this month. (Photo by
Donna Clayton Lawder) |
Another picture showcases boulders reminiscent of the monoliths at Stonehenge. And in another, the landscape seems to invite the viewer on a hike. But wait—are those the bones of some monstrous creature beside the trail?
Filling the walls of Rejuvenations coffeeshop in Silver City this month are some of the works of multi-media artist Kim Henkel, an adjunct faculty member in the expressive arts department at Western New Mexico University. The images—some stark black-and-white, others bluish or sepia-toned—were made through a process called "pinhole photography," a technique that creates pictures without a camera. That is, unless your definition of a camera includes tin cans and cardboard boxes!
This month, Henkel will offer a series of three one-day classes, for college credit or enrichment, in pinhole photography. The classes will be a mix of photography, sculpture and printmaking, exploring traditional non-silver printing processes such as Van Dyke and Cyanotype, and are for beginners or advanced photographers who want to learn a new method.
Or, actually, make that a very old method.
"This is my reaction to the rapid progression of technology. I'm saying 'no!'" Henkel explains with a laugh. "Pinhole is the way photography started. This takes the art back to its beginnings."
To use the pinhole technique, a photographer literally makes a tiny pinhole in a can or box, through which true daylight allows an image to be reflected directly onto photographic paper for anywhere from 30 seconds to over an hour.
"It's essentially a lensless camera, a camera obscura," Henkel says.
Then come the developer and fixer—familiar to anyone who's printed their own photographs—but without the darkroom! The photo-paper at the back of the pinhole "camera" becomes the negative for printing the images.
"It's an extremely simple process," Henkel says. "You have to work with natural light, which here in New Mexico is easy. There's so much sunlight, and it's consistent and reliable. You'd have a tough time doing this in the east, for example, where it's cloudy so often."
Henkel describes her process of setting the stage for her photographs. "Basically, I place my sculptures in a landscape," she says. "You know that moment when you're out hiking, and you see something on the side of the trail or ahead of you, you just come upon it. You may not know at first what it is that you're looking at.
"You think, 'What is that?' And then you really see it and you go, 'Wow!' It's that moment of discovery, that feeling that comes. That's what I'm trying to get."
Henkel has traveled extensively, inspired by the landscapes, people and critters, unique elements and, of course, the varying qualities of light in different parts of the country. She's taught at Northern Arizona University and Coconino Community College, both in Flagstaff, Ariz., and Arizona State University in Tempe.
"Different places bring different inspirations," she says. She points to the photos on the coffeehouse wall. "I guess you could call this my 'Sonoran Desert Series.' I spent a lot of time out there when I was living in Phoenix. I just had to get out, you know?"
And though she loves New Mexico, Henkel says she's eager for a new adventure that has, um, just come into focus. After putting in applications at more than 40 universities across the country, "the job that came through is at Mount Rushmore National Monument. I'll be the 'sculptor in residence,'" Henkel reveals with obvious excitement.
"I love our national parks. I've visited so many of them! They're my favorite places," she says, then adds, "I can't wait to work with the light there!"
—Donna Clayton Lawder
Kim Henkel's pinhole photography exhibit is on display through April at Rejuvenations coffeeshop at 201 N. Bullard St., at the corner of Broadway, in Silver City. Catch her pinhole photography workshop while she's still in town: April 14, 21 and 28, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Cost is $175. (One-day-only option April 14, $60.) Students must bring to class: a stop watch, a small pocket sketchbook or notebook, and an object that can be made into a pinhole camera, such as a coffee or oatmeal can, a tobacco or cookie tin. Suggested text, Pinhole Photography-Rediscovering a Historic Technique by Eric Renner, can be purchased at Leyba & Ingalls Arts. Register at Leyba & Ingalls Arts, 315 N. Bullard St. in Silver City. Register for two college credits at the office of the registrar at WNMU. For more information, call Kim Henkel at (480) 518-0713 or Diana Leyba at 388-5725.
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