Students got a chance to use their creativity and experience a novel form of picture-making on a pinhole photography project recently.
The Pinhole Workshop-Experimental Teaching Scheme, organised by art group 1a Space and sponsored by the Hong Kong Art Development Council, started demonstrating pinhole photography techniques to art teachers in August.
The teachers in turn teach the skills to students back at their own school.
On the pinhole photography workshops, students take pictures using a hand-made box with a tiny hole on one side covered with a movable magnet and painted black on the inside.
Students place a piece of photographic paper on the inside of the box opposite the hole. The box is then placed in front of the object to be photographed. The magnet covering the hole is removed, allowing light to hit the paper on the inside. After exposure, the paper is treated in developer, stop bath and fixer solutions to bring out the image.
Three schools are currently involved in the scheme: St Peter's Secondary School, Delia Memorial School (Hip Wo) and SKH Chi Fu Chi Nam Primary School.
One of the curators of the scheme and art teacher at St Peter's Secondary School, Lam Hiu-tung, said students at first did not believe it was possible to take pictures with a hand-made box.