These images were taken with a pinhole camera I built myself — cardboard, black paint, and black thick adhesive tape holding the front cover together. To take a photo, I’d flick the little flap open for a fraction of a second and hope the exposure landed somewhere interesting. Somehow, the results were always surprising.
I had the photos printed professionally at the time, and they became part of the visual diary that got me accepted into Unitec. I ended up in total for three years, exploring photography, and visual language.
Before that, I’d tried working in darkrooms, but I found them too confining. I preferred the freedom of experimenting with my old Canon 350D, wandering around and capturing strange, dreamlike moments. Surrealism suited me — the unpredictability, the imperfections, the way an image could feel like a memory or a dream instead of a literal record.
I also worked on subjects such as OCD in both film and video. That was healing in it’s own way.
Looking at these pages now, I realise how much that creative freedom meant to me. And I’m feeling it again lately — that quiet pull back toward making things, revisiting old work, and letting myself enjoy the process without overthinking it.
I’m not going to stress about finances. I’m choosing creativity today.