pinhole van

lt. sent me a link to the website of two guys, joel beaman and david miller, who turned their van into a pinhole camera. they describe their project: "these places line roads and highways, and to really see them we must slow down and spend a little bit of time there. our roads are full of trucks, each one full of products to feed our need to consume. these trucks are the blood cells moving through the arteries, keeping us consumers alive. we are immersed into the blood stream and limited to the views from the edges of the road. the process of taking pictures with the pinholevan puts us in the truck on that highway. however, instead of delivering a load of lumber or steel pipe, our payload is the silver traces of these places."

i think this idea of drastically slowing down the picture making process (their exposures are around 160 minutes in broad daylight), references some of the earliest experiences of photography. this dialogue with the history of photography and the history of photographers documenting their environment gives the black and white images a timeless quality that is disrupted only by the contrast of a modern car or sign. the color images are less successful for me because they immediately date the pictures, robbing the viewer of the chance to enjoy the mystery.