DONNA ENTICKNAP

I’m using a pinhole camera to photograph time. Slow self portraits. Each photo is a durational piece, almost a performance. Due to the nature of pinhole photography, exposure times are much longer than a typical photograph, sometimes they can be up to an hour, depending on the light. The intention is to experience this time passing, with no distractions. I just have to be present and still and look at trees. My feet start to hurt immediately, I might instantly regret the position I’ve chosen, or the location, or even the whole idea, but the camera shutter is open and I have to commit. And time passes strangely, slows down and speeds up, and it’s just a case of waiting, and then waiting a bit more. I listen to the birds, I watch how the light changes. My mind races and wanders - It’s hard to not think. Often I’ll catch myself mentally counting the seconds - and I have to bring myself back to just waiting and not knowing. The longer I stand the easier it becomes, and then I feel like I could continue for another hour. And even so, despite my stillness, in the photo I’m a blur, a vibration. Every one of those thoughts and micro-movements and light changes and all the minutes are captured on the paper.

But the best moments are when sometimes, beautifully, suddenly, my mind empties. No thoughts, just silence. Relief. I feel my self floating off, I become grass and root and soil and air and blessed nothingness. I can’t force this. I just have to wait.

It’s an attempt to capture an experience of stillness by compressing time into a single still frame. The time it takes for the light to enter a tiny pin-pricked hole and bounce around inside a dark box, for that light and time to sharpen some things and soften others, the time it takes to merge into the background, to become nettles and bindweed and motes of dust and falling leaves. It’s an act of being in the moment and disappearing into it.