The Star News, The Anoka Union, The Coon Rapids Herald
(April 2005)

Life through a pinhole

by Britt Aamodt

For the most part, Coon Rapids photographer Tom Miller gave up lens photography in 1996. That’s when he discovered pinhole cameras—cameras with a design so simple a person could slap one together at the kitchen table.

Gather a box, a small metal plate and some electrical tape, and you’ve got the rudiments. Bore a hole in the metal plate; stick a square of film inside the box, and presto—a camera with no lens, viewfinder or timed shutter.

Miller will exhibit his pinhole photography at the Sherburne County Government Center in Elk River until May 6. In the exhibit, sponsored by the Elk River Area Arts Alliance, the photographer explores the creative possibilities of the pinhole camera through images.

Miller photographs Minnesota, but one viewers might not recognize.

The Mississippi River winds through a starkly lit Minneapolis where it wouldn’t be out of place to expect Humphrey Bogart acting out a film noir scenario. Like the detective films of the 40s, Miller’s images in the Dark Light series create mood through contrasting light and shadow. The Twin Arch Bridge spans desolate shores heaped with black snow. Miller created these ominous cityscapes by using negatives, rather than positive prints.

Along with the Dark Light series, Miller’s exhibit A Pinhole Sampler brings together three projects that challenge the pinhole camera’s primitive design.

“Pinhole photography’s less about taking what’s there,” said Miller.

Pinhole photographs lack the sharpness of lens photographs, but it’s in the giving up of exactness, of sharpness, Miller believes, that the human desire to articulate “things that are beyond words” finds expression.

The artist and pinhole camera have to work together to interpret, rather than reproduce, a setting.

Elongating pinholes into slits and then pairing them, one in front of the other, produces the funhouse-mirror shapes of the Iconoclast series.

“With the Iconoclast series,” Miller said, “I wanted to examine the proliferation of icons in our life and culture.”

Like the inverted black and white of the Dark Light series, Miller’s sequence of traffic signs and signboards takes reality and turns it on its head. Common symbols—the yield sign or pedestrian crossing—are given a fresh and fun reexamination as they ripple, twist and bend across the picture plane.

In photographs made with a blender camera, multiple pinholes are used simultaneously to create in-camera montages. The resulting images step the viewer through the looking glass to visit a hallucinatory Twin Cities metro where multiple viewpoints coexist and overlap.

In one example, “Harriet’s Charms,” the Lake Harriet band shell splits in half, each half retreating to a corner but connecting in the middle by a tranquil stretch of blue water and moored boats. It’s as if the viewer has mentally divided the building to take a peek behind at hidden realities.

The last project included in A Pinhole Sampler, “The Flying Pinhole,” incorporates the work of eight pinhole photographers, Miller among them. The 10-inch by 10-foot banner presents a storyboard of sixteen images. The pictures slightly overlap, adding continuity to an otherwise diverse tableau. Miller’s photographs, one of a seated man and one of a pumpkin, nestle in the center.

Miller himself is deeply centered in his art form. And he wants to share it with the world.

Besides teaching classes on pinhole photography at the Minnesota Center for Photography in northeast Minneapolis, Miller helps coordinate the annual Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

This year on April 24, “anybody anywhere in the world who makes a photograph on Pinhole Day can scan and upload an image to our online gallery,” said Miller, who estimates that, in 2004, 1,515 people from 46 countries participated.

The Government Center will exhibit Miller’s A Pinhole Sampler weekdays 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. until May 6. For more information, contact the ERAAA at (763) 441-4725 or elkriverart@sherbtel.net.

Journalist

http://www.erstarnews.com 

Letterpress Art, by Design
Chick Flicks
Just a girl
POP CULTURE: From Sandman to Star Trek to Sammy the Mouse
Why I Joined the Air Force: Part 1. The Man in the Light
Oh Hell
An ‘unforgettable’ man
The Mystery of the Third Lucretia: Susan Runholt
Rose Ensemble to Perform in Elk River
Rena Haus plays the blues with Taste
Nobody's Fool: Theater and the Homeless
Mississippi Connections: Artist Ron Merchant paints Minnesota's river towns
New Christmas CD by Elk River flutist
Doralucia in Bloom
"The Witness" performed at Central Lutheran Church
Secret Gardens: The Landscape Arboretum's Summer Gift
A River Journey: Ron Merchant
The Art of the Natural
ArtSoup dishes up fun activities for children
Art for sale at ArtSoup
ArtSoup Community Arts Festival looking for artists
Classic Car Show at ArtSoup
Monticello artist will create chalk art at ArtSoup
Where there's fair, there's food
The Raptor Center at ArtSoup 2005
The Rena Haus Band invites local musicians to jam
Ring of Kerry to perform on the ArtSoup Energy Stage
Chaska author to discuss new novel at ArtSoup
It's lovely weather for a sleigh ride...in June
Swan Sculpture will promote ArtSoup 2005
Elk River artist Cari Rock remembered
Mike Olson's Sound Art
Mike Peterson's American Vision
The Poet's Antarctica
Life through a pinhole
Debbie, Manny and the Mob
Student musicians to share stage with Army Field Band
Holocaust survivor to speak at Elk River Public Library April 5
Mu Performing Arts will return to Elk River
Cashing in on Cabela's?
Everything's Coming Up Roseville
Wild Life
Author Jane Toleno Makes the Connection
Sorry to see you go...
Enhanced 9-1-1 Speeds Response Time When Time Is of the Essence
What your children need to know about Enhanced 9-1-1
Your house is your home: Enhanced 9-1-1
Curves holiday craft sale to benefit the American Cancer Society
Twin Cities Underground Film Fest NR
Going vintage
Red Wing Framing Gallery harvests the season with Autumn Aire
Arts on ice: Arts in Harmony '08
The Mitten Tree
I want to be in pictures
Wedding Gifts: Shopping the Exquisite Past
POP CULTURE: From Sandman to Star Trek to Sammy the Mouse
Cyberbullying
Where the Action Still Is
Working in a Hot Medium: Bakelite
Carved and Painted Beauties
Wagon Train trip West led to mutiny for maricle and other travelers
Re-TREAT Yourself: Minnesota's Spas and Retreats
Stillwater Still Has It
Arts, Activism and Robert Bluestone
‘Some Enchanted Evening’ at Zabee
For the Love of Roxie
RADIO: Rescuing Seneca Crane
Online, on-leash and together at last
Horse Wisdom
Heid Erdrich: A Monument of One's Own
Heid Erdrich: National Monuments
Diary sent Fargo man on 34-year hunt
Radio Play: The Evil of Shady Lake (with production notes)
The Norm (screenplay - early draft)
Cartoonist Profile: Steven Stwalley
Cartoonist Profile: Zak Sally
Cartoonist Profile: Zak Sally
Cartoonist Profile: Doug Mahnke
The Norm screenplay (early draft)